UC-NRLF 


Ebb    EDH 


ON  THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 


ON  THE  TRAINING  OF 
PARENTS 


BY 

ERNEST  HAMLIN  ABBOTT 
f> 

"  And  they  shall  live  with  their  children." 


BOSTON    AND    NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
pet**  Cambridge 


7  S-4- 


COPYRIGHT  igoS  BY  ERNEST  HAMLIN  ABBOTT 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


Published  Apri 


TENTH  IMPRESSION 


No  man  has  the  right  to  dedicate  to  another 
what  is  not  his  own.  All  that  if  mine  in 
this  little  book  is  its  infelicities.  These  I 
dedicate  to  oblivion.  The  rest  belongs  to 
those  two  women  from  whom  /,  as  son  and 
as  husband,  have  learned  all  that  I  know 
of  the  training  of  parents. 


575733 


CONTENTS 

I.  SPASM  AND  HABIT i 

II.  THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY    ...        19 

III.  BY  RULE  OF  WIT 40 

IV.  PEACE  AT  A  PRICE         ....        72 
V.  FOR  'T  is  THEIR  NATURE  TO    .        .        .93 

VI.  THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM        .       .114 


ON  THE  TRAINING 
OF   PARENTS 


SPASM  AND   HABIT 

A  VOICE  like  a  knife  cut  the  still, 
warm  air.  "Now  you  just  go  right 
down  and  get  that  canned  salmon."  I 
turned  my  head  and  saw  a  little  girl, 
in  a  fluffy  dress  with  a  skirt  like  a  para- 
chute, standing  in  the  midst  of  the  long 
grass.  She  was  evidently  frightened  and 
hesitating.  There  was  a  whimper  and  a 
whining  protest.  A  young  woman  in  a 
wrapper,  with  a  menacing  switch  in  her 
hand,  was  advancing.  Her  voice  grew 
sharper:  "You  do  what  I  say,  quick, 
or  I'll  whip  you  good!"  The  child  beat 
a  retreat  toward  me;  then  timidly  stood 
her  ground.  "It's  so  far!"  she  wailed. 
The  enemy  again  approached;  but  the 
I 


E  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

little  feet  of  the  child  were  nimble  enough 
to  keep  her  at  a  safe  distance.  "If  you 
don't  hurry,  I'll  whip  you  anyway."  Fear 
of  the  switch  was  evidently  mastering  the 
dislike  of  the  task.  The  little  girl  burst  out 
crying,  turned  down  the  dusty  road,  and 
disappeared  in  the  direction  of  the  village. 
That  incident  was  the  result  of  govern- 
ment by  collision.  If  that  mother  had  any 
principle  at  all,  it  might  be  expressed  thus : 
Wait  till  the  child  does  wrong,  then  collide 
with  her.  Of  course  none  of  us  would 
deliberately  collide  in  just  this  fashion. 
We  should  not  be  so  vulgar.  When  we  have 
an  altercation  with  a  child,  we  choose  less 
publicity  and  have  some  regard  for  refine- 
ment of  phrase.  Perhaps,  too,  we  ordina- 
rily avoid  altercation  entirely  except  con- 
cerning some  grave  matter.  We  should 
prefer  to  do  without  canned  salmon  rather 
than  exhibit  our  impotence  and  our  temper 
before  the  neighbors.  When,  however,  we 
have  the  child  in  seclusion  at  our  mercy, 
are  we  deterred  from  trying  the  collision 
2 


method  by  any  considerations  of  principle  ? 
If  not,  we  belong  to  the  same  school  of 
parents  as  the  young  woman  in  a  wrapper. 
The  only  difference  is  that  we  have  not  her 
courage  of  conviction  —  or  of  indolence. 

Now,  those  who  believe  in  government 
by  collision  need  read  no  further;  for  I 
shall  assume  that  such  government  is  only 
just  better  than  no  government  at  all,  and 
that,  if  we  fall  into  its  methods,  we  do  so 
by  accident  or  because  of  the  frailty  of  our 
temper;  that  every  altercation  with  a  child 
is  a  confession  of  weakness;  and  that  our 
principal  task  is  to  train  ourselves  so  that 
we  may  be  able  to  govern  a  child  without 
colliding  with  him.  Of  course,  in  the  train- 
ing of  children,  as  in  managing  a  railway, 
it  may  sometimes  be  necessary  to  occasion 
a  disaster  in  order  to  avoid  a  great  catastro- 
phe. If  a  freight  car  is  running  wild  down 
a  grade,  it  is  better  to  throw  it  off  the  track 
than  to  allow  it  to  smash  a  loaded  passenger 
train.  So  it  may  sometimes  be  better  to 
let  a  child  collide  with  you,  rather  than 
3 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

have  him  collide  with  the  community. 
But  in  both  cases  it  is  better  to  have  the 
collision  well  planned,  to  recognize  it  as 
a  disaster,  though  the  lesser  of  two  pos- 
sible ones,  and,  best  of  all,  to  prevent 
any  occasion  of  resorting  to  destructive 
measures. 

The  only  alternative  I  know  to  govern- 
ment by  collision  is  government  by  habit. 
To  show  what  I  mean,  may  I  cite  an 
instance  in  contrast  to  the  episode  of  the 
switch  and  the  canned  salmon  ?  That 
same  summer  a  small  boy,  six  years  old, 
was  playing  with  his  blocks.  His  mother 
in  the  next  room  suddenly  realized  that 
she  had  not  ordered  the  fruit  that  was 
needed  for  the  household.  "Max!"  she 
called.  Now  Max  is  no  prig,  but  he 
had  learned  that  he  was  expected  to  come 
when  called;  so,  with  an  injunction  to  his 
playmates  not  to  disturb  the  bridge  he 
was  building,  he  appeared  at  the  door- 
way. "What  is  it?"  (He  ought  to  have 
said,  "Yes,  mamma;"  but,  as  I  have 
4 


SPASM  AND  HABIT 

remarked,  Max  is  thoroughly  human.) 
"  I  want  you  to  do  an  errand  for  me  — • 
something  you  've  never  done  before.  I 
want  you  to  go  to  the  grocery  and  get 
six  oranges."  Max  started  off.  "Wait 
a  moment.  You've  never  gone  alone  on 
such  a  long  errand  before.  Do  you  be- 
lieve you  can  do  it  quickly,  and  not 
dawdle  ?"  Max  thought  he  could,  and 
in  fact  did  the  errand  as  promptly  as 
could  be  expected.  He  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  obedience;  in  addition,  he  had 
become  accustomed  to  accepting  some 
measure  of  responsibility.  The  mother 
controlled  him,  not  by  violence,  but  by 
habit.  The  occurrence  was  the  result 
of  a  long  process,  and  became  in  turn  a 
cause  of  future  occurrences  of  similar 
character.  Reduced  to  its  simplest  terms, 
then,  the  process  of  training  children  is 
the  process  of  forming  habits. 

The  earliest  habits  are  physical.  The 
whole  duty  of  man  during  the  first  few 
weeks  of  his  existence  consists  in  feed- 

5 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

ing  and  sleeping  regularly;  and  most  of 
the  rights  of  man  during  that  period 
consist  in  being  let  alone.  Listen  to  the 
eminent  French  psychologist,  Th.  Ribot: 
"The  new-born  infant  is  a  spinal  being, 
with  an  unformed,  diffluent  brain,  com- 
posed largely  of  water.  Reflex  life  itself 
is  not  complete  in  him,  and  the  cortico- 
motor  system  only  hinted  at;  the  sensory 
centres  are  undifferentiated,  the  asso- 
ciational  systems  remain  isolated,  for  a 
long  time  after  birth."  Does  n't  it  make 
you  shudder  to  think  of  dandling  such 
a  creature  as  that  on  a  hard-gaited  knee  ? 
Does  not  that  "unformed,  diffluent  brain, 
composed  largely  of  water,"  plead  to  be 
let  alone  ?  Yet  the  impulse  of  most 
parents  when  they  encounter  their  new 
possession  is  to  do  something  to  it,  — 
to  take  it  up,  to  carry  it  about,  and,  as 
soon  as  its  eyes  are  really  open,  to  try  and 
show  it  things,  to  evoke  from  it  some  kind 
of  human  expression.  It  seems  as  if  we 
were  all  beset  by  a  doubt  that  our  offspring 
6 


SPASM  AND  HABIT 

is  really  a  creature  of  our  own  kind,  and 
that  we  were  bound  to  make  it  establish, 
by  some  proof,  its  right  to  a  place  at  the 
top  of  creation.  Now,  the  instincts  of 
the  infant  are  all  in  other  directions. 
Yielding  to  these,  the  mite  seems  to  be 
utterly  indifferent  to  the  honors  of  its 
station  in  animal  life,  and  even  to  the 
attention  it  receives.  It  wants  to  cry  occa- 
sionally, to  feed  periodically,  and  to  sleep 
a  great  deal.  And,  in  spite  of  our  experi- 
ence, we  are  wrong,  and  the  diminutive 
thing,  with  a  cortico-motor  system  only 
hinted  at,  with  sensory  centres  undiffer- 
entiated,  and  with  the  extraordinary  dis- 
advantage of  having  completely  isolated 
associational  centres,  is  right.  The  first 
habits,  therefore,  which  the  parents  have 
to  form  in  the  training  of  their  child  are 
their  own;  and  the  most  important  of 
these  is  the  habit  of  non-interference,  which 
is  another  name  for  the  habit  of  self- 
restraint.  Fortunately,  we  parents  can 
at  the  outset  devote  our  attention  chiefly 

7 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

to  this  for  several  months.  If  we  wish 
to  avoid,  in  later  years,  the  necessity  for 
resorting  to  government  by  spasm,  and 
to  establish  instead  government  by  habit, 
we  do  not  have  to  begin  by  experimenting 
on  a  helpless  child;  we  can  begin,  for- 
tunately, by  experimenting  on  ourselves. 

It  is  during  this  period  that  we  have 
the  best  chance  of  learning  the  differ- 
ence between  governing  children  and 
interfering  with  them;  for  though  that 
midget  will  not  thrive  under  interference, 
he  will  thrive  under  government.  He 
does  not  need  to  be  told  what  to  do,  but 
he  does  depend  on  us  to  teach  him  when 
*  to  do  it.  While,  therefore,  we  are  form- 
ing in  ourselves  the  habit  of  non-interfer- 
ence, we  are  also  forming  in  him  the 
habit  of  regularity.  If  we  begin  that 
way,  we  save  both  him  and  ourselves  a 
great  deal  of  trouble. 

One  mother,  for  instance,  when  she 
hears  her  baby  cry,  runs  to  him,  picks 
him  up,  dances  him  up  and  down,  offers 
8 


SPASM  AND  HABIT 

him  food,  dangles  a  bell  in  front  of  him, 
talks  to  him,  takes  him  to  the  window, 
tries  every  imaginable  device  to  quiet 
him.  "It 's  wicked,  I  think,"  says  she, 
"to  try  to  stifle  my  maternal  instincts. 
The  poor  little  dear!  how  could  I  be  so 
cruel  as  not  to  respond  to  his  cry  for 
me  ?"  She  is  assuming  several  things. 
She  assumes,  first,  that  the  baby  is  crying 
for  her,  whereas  he  is  probably  crying 
because  he  needs  the  exercise.  That  is 
the  only  way  he  can  expand  his  lungs. 
When  he  cries  because  of  pain,  or  anger, 
or  nervous  irritability,  the  cry  will  be 
unmistakable;  and  the  response  ought 
to  be,  not  a  wild  series  of  spasms,  but  an 
intelligent  treatment  of  the  cause.  She 
assumes,  in  the  second  place,  that  the 
impulse  to  rid  herself  of  the  annoyance 
of  hearing  the  cry  is  a  maternal  instinct. 
If  that  were  so,  a  lot  of  gruff  old  bache- 
lors on  railway  trains  are  frequently 
moved  by  maternal  instinct.  The  ma- 
ternal instinct,  in  fact,  is  something  quite 

9 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

different  —  it  is  the  instinct  of  care,  watch- 
fulness, nurture,  and  it  does  not  call  for 
spasms.  In  the  third  place,  she  assumes 
that  it  would  be  cruel  not  to  experiment 
with  her  child  —  at  least  so  it  appears;  for 
what  she  does  is  to  try  in  quick  succes- 
sion a  series  of  experiments,  no  one  of 
which  is  continued  long  enough  to  be  of 
any  value,  and  all  of  which,  as  she  might 
easily  learn,  have  been  proved  to  be  of 
no  permanent  value  in  producing  placid, 
contented  babies. 

The  other  mother,  when  she  hears  the 
cry,  listens.  If  it  is  a  cry  of  pain,  she 
knows  it  in  an  instant.  It  is  amazing 
how  quickly  a  mother  learns  that  lan- 
guage. It  is  a  mystery  to  most  men, 
though  even  to  them  not  unsearchable. 
Physicians,  after  experience  in  children's 
wards,  understand  it;  and  even  a  father, 
if  he  is  patient,  can  acquire  a  moderate 
knowledge  of  it.  But  a  mother,  or  even 
a  nurse,  if  she  is  moved  by  a  genuine 
maternal  instinct  and  not  by  a  selfish 
10 


SPASM  AND  HABIT 

desire  for  her  own  comfort,  is  almost  an 
adept  at  the  start.  At  the  cry  of  pain, 
that  mother  in  a  moment  is  looking  for 
the  misplaced  pin,  or  rearranging  the 
irritating  bit  of  clothing,  or  remedying 
the  uncomfortable  position,  or  searching 
for  a  more  hidden  cause.  If  it  is  a  cry 
of  irritability,  she  blames  herself  for 
having  rocked  the  child  a  few  moments 
before,  and  steels  herself  against  repeat- 
ing the  indulgence.  If  it  is  a  cry  of  hunger, 
she  looks  at  the  clock  to  see  if  it  is  the  hour 
for  another  feeding.  If  it  is  just  "plain 
cry,"  she  smiles,  for  she  knows  that  he  is 
doing  that  in  lieu  of  playing  baseball  or 
riding  horseback.  When  it  is  meal-time, 
she,  exercising  the  discretion  which  he  is 
not  always  able  to  exercise  for  himself, 
gently  withdraws  the  food  supply  when 
he  has  had  all  that  is  good  for  him.  And 
when  it  is  time  for  him  to  go  to  sleep,  she 
arranges  him  comfortably  in  his  crib, 
darkens  the  room,  and  leaves  him.  If  then 
he  emits  another  "plain  cry,"  she  is  not 
II 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

disturbed.  He  has  as  much  a  right  to  cry 
as  he  has  to  sleep.  If  she  lets  him  go  to 
sleep  in  her  arms,  for  the  love  of  feeling 
him  there,  she  will  not  complain  later, 
when  it  is  more  inconvenient,  if  he  remon- 
strates against  going  to  sleep  in  any  other 
way.  She  will  know  that  in  that  respect, 
as  in  respect  to  his  regular  feeding,  she 
has  governed  him  by  habit.  Either  she 
will  have  to  pay  the  penalty  of  having 
established  in  her  kingdom  an  inconven- 
ient law,  or  else  she  will  have  to  inflict 
upon  him,  as  well  as  herself,  the  penalty 
of  establishing  later,  and  at  greater  cost, 
another  and  more  convenient  custom 
which  might  just  as  well  have  been  estab- 
lished in  the  first  place.  This  penalty 
may  involve  a  collision  —  though  possibly 
a  mild  one.  Even  in  that  case,  however, 
in  the  very  difficulty  of  supplanting  an 
old  custom  by  a  new  one,  she  will  have  evi- 
dence of  the  strength  of  her  government 
by  habit. 
There  is  no  reason  why  regularity  once 

12 


SPASM  AND  HABIT 

*• 

established  should  not  become  for  all 
future  years  a  routine.  We  all  know  how 
hard  it  is  to  break  up  a  bad  habit.  Happily, 
it  is  just  as  hard  to  break  up  a  good  one. 
The  difference  between  the  child  who 
teases  for  every  new  variety  of  food  on  the 
table,  pushes  away  the  dishes  that  are  set 
before  him,  whines  when  he  is  told  it  is 
bedtime,  eats  and  goes  to  sleep  only  after 
much  coaxing,  and  the  child  who  accepts 
his  food  and  his  hours  for  sleep  as  a  matter 
of  course,  as  he  accepts  the  house  he  lives 
in,  is  simply  the  difference  between  a  bad 
habit  and  a  good  one.  It  is  no  easier  to 
change  the  one  habit  than  it  is  the  other. 
After  a  child  has  learned  to  get  his  food 
and  go  to  bed  with  whining  and  teasing, 
it  is  very  difficult  for  him  to  learn  to  eat 
and  sleep  in  any  other  fashion ;  it  is  equally 
difficult  for  a  child  who  has  learned  to  eat 
and  enjoy  food  adapted  to  him,  and  to  go 
to  bed  at  a  suitable  hour,  to  understand 
why  all  sorts  of  strange  decoctions  should 
be  offered  to  him,  and  why  he  should  not 

13 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

get  undressed  when  his  bedtime  comes. 
Of  course  the  spirit  of  adventure,  which  is 
strong  in  most  normal  children,  will  lead 
them  sometimes  to  sample  some  things  that 
they  see  their  elders  —  or,  for  that  matter, 
the  animals  —  eating;  and  to  race  about 
the  halls,  exploring  the  domain  of  the 
dark,  after  they  are  supposed  to  be  asleep; 
but  even  this  spirit  of  adventure,  which 
sometimes  brings  discouragement  to  the 
mother,  is  a  tribute  to  regular  life;  and 
it  is  denied  to  those  children  whose  whole 
life  consists  in  a  series  of  parental  exper- 
iments. The  little  lad  who  at  a  chil- 
dren's party  declines  the  sweetmeats  is  no 
angel.  Nor  is  his  companion  who  grabs 
the  dainties  an  imp.  They  are  both,  like 
the  rest  of  us,  creatures  of  habit.  The 
theory  of  total  depravity,  by  which  our 
forefathers  explained  the  unpleasant  do- 
ings of  youngsters,  is,  I  have  concluded, 
a  doctrine  which  parents  devised  in  order 
to  shift  the  burden  of  their  own  failures 
to  the  shoulders  of  their  offspring. 


SPASM  AND  HABIT 

This  practice  of  regularity  in  the  phys- 
ical care  of  children  *  will  lay  the  foun- 
dation, not  only  of  health  and  content- 
ment, but  also  of  moral  discipline.  When 
we  have  eliminated  the  opportunities  for 
collision  with  our  children  at  meal-times 
and  bedtime,  we  are  well  on  our  way 
toward  eliminating  government  by  col- 
lision altogether.  The  quiet  exercise  of 
authority  involved  in  carrying  out  a  sim- 
ple regimen  of  diet  and  of  rest  will  almost 
automatically  extend  to  other  matters. 
The  most  difficult  part  of  this  exercise  of 
authority  will  be  overcome  when  the  parent 
learns  self-restraint.  Not  to  run  to  a  child 

1  For  directions  in  this  matter  I  know  of  no  book  to  compare 
with  Dr.  L.  Emmett  Holt's  The  Care  and  Feeding  of  Children, 
published  by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.  Intelligently  followed  by  a 
mother,  with  due  regard  to  the  individual  peculiarities  of  the  chil- 
dren under  her  care,  the  system  outlined  in  that  volume  will  save 
the  mother  an  enormous  amount  of  energy  and  worry  and  the  child 
a  great  deal  of  injustice.  It  ought  to  arrive  in  every  household  with 
the  first-born  baby,  or,  better,  a  few  weeks  in  advance.  The  phy- 
sician who  sees  that  it  does,  in  every  family  he  attends,  will  win  a 
wealth  of  gratitude  and  confidence.  In  my  own  household  it  came 
that  way.  As  a  supplement,  not  a  substitute,  I  also  recommend  Dr. 
Emelyn  L.  Coolidge's  The  Mother"*  Manual  (A.  S.  Barnes  &  Co.). 

15 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

every  time  he  cries  is  the  beginning  of 
learning  not  to  yield  to  a  child  every  time 
he  wants  something.  In  many  cases  au- 
thority is  thus  exercised  by  doing  nothing. 
The  mother,  for  example,  has  left  the  baby 
creeping  about  alone  in  his  nursery.  She 
has  left  him  a  ball  and  two  or  three  blocks 
with  which  he  can  experiment,  and  an- 
other ball  hanging  from  a  cord  within  his 
reach  which  he  can  swing  to  and  fro.  He 
is  learning  that  the  ball  is  soft  and  can 
roll,  that  the  blocks  are  hard  and  cannot 
roll,  and  that  the  pendulum  swings  regu- 
larly. He  is  as  well  occupied  in  his  work 
as  the  mother  is  in  hers.  Suddenly  she 
hears  a  cry  of  vexation.  If  it  continues, 
she  steps  to  the  door  to  see  what  has  hap- 
pened. He  has  raised  himself  up  by  the 
window  and  is  trying  to  reach  the  tassel 
at  the  end  of  the  cord  on  the  window- 
shade,  and  finds  it  above  his  outstretched 
hands.  She  might  go  to  the  window,  draw 
down  the  shade,  and,  holding  it  firm,  let 
him  play  with  the  cord  till  he  tires;  but 
16 


SPASM  AND  HABIT 

she  knows  that  it  would  be  inconvenient 
to  have  him  continually  playing  with  the 
window-shade  in  the  house,  and  she  does 
not  want  him  to  begin.  She  might  then 
take  him  up  and  distract  his  attention  till 
he  forgets.  But  she  knows  that  if  she  does 
this  once,  she  will  be  called  upon  to  do  it 
again.  So  she  shakes  her  head  and  says 
"No,"  which  she  has  taught  him  to  under- 
stand, and,  after  making  sure  that  he  is 
in  no  danger  of  a  fall,  leaves  him  and  re- 
turns to  her  work.  By  doing  nothing  she 
has  done  what  for  the  time  being  is  the 
hardest  thing.  As  she  closes  the  door  she 
hears  another  wail  of  vexation,  but  she 
does  not  interfere.  She  has  exercised  her 
authority  simply  by  exercising  self-re- 
straint. 

It  all  depends  on  what  we  want  our  chil- 
dren to  be  whether  we  employ  the  method 
of  spasm  or  the  method  of  self-restraint. 
Of  course  those  of  us  who  think  pertness 
in  a  child  is  a  virtue,  who  regard  a  fit  of 
teasing  as  "smart"  or  "cunning,"  who 
17 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

enjoy  the  exhilaration  of  encountering  a 
child  as  an  adversary  and  breaking  down 
his  opposition,  can  develop  in  children 
habitual  pertness,  teasing,  and  disobe- 
dience with  the  utmost  ease.  It  requires, 
however,  no  especial  genius  to  avoid  these 
qualities.  Other  traits,  it  may  be,  require 
something  like  genius  —  something  at  least 
beyond  persistence  and  self-restraint  — 
to  create;  but  to  provide  children  with  a 
contented  acquiescence  in  a  regular  life 
and  an  habitual  disposition  to  obedience 
requires  of  the  parents  no  qualities  of 
mind  which  are  not  common  to  all  of  us 
mortals. 


II 

THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY 

PARENTS  regard  their  children  with 
all  sorts  of  feelings,  with  love  of 
course,  with  indulgence,  with  amusement, 
and  even,  so  it  is  said,  with  self-compla- 
cency and  admiration;  but  it  sometimes 
seems  as  if  very  few  regard  them  with  re- 
spect. No  one  who  respects  another  will 
lie  to  him,  or  visit  him  with  empty  threats, 
or  make  to  him  vain  promises ;  yet  fathers 
and  mothers  in  all  parts  of  the  country 
are  at  this  moment  lying  to  their  children, 
threatening  them  with  punishments  they 
do  not  mean  to  inflict,  and  making  prom- 
ises they  do  not  intend  to  fulfill.  The  faith 
of  a  child  ought  to  be  proverbial.  It  is  the 
only  substance  of  things  hoped  for  which 
many  children  ever  get.  I  sometimes 
wonder  if  it  is  really  just  to  lay  the  Fifth 
Commandment  upon  all  American  chil- 
19 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

dren.  Somehow,  there  seems  to  be  some- 
thing reciprocal  implied  in  it.  If  that  com- 
mandment is  of  universal  application,  it 
can  be  considered  so,  I  imagine,  only  on 
the  ground  that  it  states  a  duty  owed  ulti- 
mately not  to  the  parents  but  to  the  Al- 
mighty. Certainly  that  parent  who  does 
not  respect  his  children  has  no  personal 
claim  upon  their  honor. 

What  I  mean  by  respect  for  a  child  I 
can  perhaps  explain  best  by  an  instance. 
Marshall,  aged  seven,  had  yielded  to 
temptation  in  the  form  of  a  preserved 
pear.  Instead  of  putting  the  temptation 
behind  him,  he  had  put  it  within  him; 
and  he  had  been  caught.  The  maternal 
court  decided  that  a  fair  equivalent  for 
this  pear  was  a  week  of  desserts.  For  two 
days  the  culprit  sat  inactive  at  the  close  of 
dinner  while  his  comrades  ate  with  relish 
their  portions  of  pudding.  Then  unex- 
pectedly came  an  invitation  to  dinner 
from  a  friend.  On  the  return  homeward 
an  aunt  remarked,  "I  noticed  that  Mar- 
20 


THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY 

shall  ate  dessert  with  the  others."  "Yes," 
replied  his  mother,  "I  think  he  must  have 
forgotten.  I  noticed  it  too,  but  I  did  not 
speak  to  him  because  there  was  no  ex- 
pectation of  this  treat  when  the  punish- 
ment was  determined  upon.  Besides,  I 
do  not  think  it  would  have  been  just  to 
add  to  his  punishment  by  humiliating 
him  before  the  others." 

In  this  case  respect  for  the  youthful 
Marshall  meant,  first,  attributing  the  fail- 
ure to  observe  the  rule  to  something  be- 
sides deliberate  intent;  second,  recogniz- 
ing that  he  was  to  be  treated  not  merely 
with  severity,  but  also  with  justice;  and, 
third,  appreciating  the  individuality  of 
the  child,  which  included  special  sensi- 
tiveness to  the  attention  and  opinion  of 
others.  The  very  fact  that  Marshall  was 
accustomed  to  regularity  of  discipline,  to 
invariableness  in  punishment,  and  even 
to  ridicule  of  vanity  or  silliness,  made  it 
possible  for  his  mother  to  do  something 
that  smacked  of  irregularity  and  of  vari- 

21 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

ableness,  and  to  save  him  from  unneces- 
sary abasement.  Just  because  she  had  a 
rule  which  she  habitually  followed,  she 
could  break  it.  She  could  not  have  broken 
it  if  she  had  not  had  it.  The  effectiveness 
of  this  act  of  omission  lay  in  the  very  fact 
that  it  was  an  exception.  It  was  a  case  in 
which  fairness  to  the  boy  depended  upon 
inconsistency.  This  only  illustrates  the 
truth  that  in  dealing  with  a  child  you  may 
violate  any  principle  so  long  as  you  keep 
your  respect  for  the  child  inviolate.  And 
the  secret  of  respect  for  a  child  lies  in  re- 
garding him  as  a  human  being. 

The  limitation  of  the  devotee  of  "child 
study,"  the  scientific  investigator  of  "child 
nature,"  the  observer  of  "the  child  mind," 
is  that  he  cannot  regard  a  child  as  a  human 
being.  In  other  words,  his  limitation  con- 
sists in  being  too  broad.  He  observes  in- 
dividuals only  for  the  sake  of  disregarding 
their  individuality.  He  is  busy  establish- 
ing some  general  laws  of  childhood.  He 
must  choose  to  know  nothing  of  children 

22 


THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY 

that  he  may  know  the  Child.  As  soon  as 
he  begins  to  respect  an  individual  child  he 
becomes  personal  and  biased;  and  as  soon 
as  he  becomes  personal  and  biased  he 
ceases  to  be  scientific.  A  good  mother, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  good  just  because  of 
her  prejudices.  She  knows  so  much  about 
her  child  that  her  testimony  is  scientifically 
worthless.  In  everything  the  child  does 
she  sees  something  he,  and  not  another 
child  has  done  before;  and  she  makes  her 
judgments  accordingly.  And  it  is  just 
because  her  observations  would  be  vicious 
in  a  table  of  statistics  that  they  are  the  best 
possible  basis  for  conduct.  In  other  words, 
she  is  dealing,  not  with  a  subject,  a  cada- 
ver, so  to  speak,  that  can  be  classified,  but 
with  a  live  being  that  for  her  purposes  be- 
longs in  a  class  by  himself.  That  is  what 
I  mean  by  respecting  a  child. 

It  is  here  that  the  teacher  and  the  parent 
are  at  odds.  The  teacher  is  dealing  with 
childhood,  the  parent  is  dealing  with 
Dick-hood  or  Mary-hood.  The  teacher  is 

23 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

engaged  chiefly  in  providing  each  child 
with  the  equipment  that  belongs  by  right 
to  all  civilized  children;  the  parent,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  bound  to  bring  each  child 
to  his,  and  not  another's,  highest  develop- 
ment. The  teacher  is  responsible  for  the 
school  or  the  class;  the  parent,  for  the  boy 
or  girl.  The  difference  in  point  of  view 
makes  the  difference  in  duty.  It  was  from 
the  parental  point  of  view  that  the  ancient 
sage  wrote  his  proverb  —  "Train  up  a 
child  in  the  way  he  should  go."  He  was 
not  thinking  of  the  way  of  universal  obli- 
gation, for  what  he  really  said  was,  "Train 
up  a  child  in  the  way  he  [that  particular 
individual]  is  to  go;"  in  other  words,  pre- 
pare him  for  the  kind  of  life  for  which  he 
is  fitted.  In  order  to  do  this,  one  must  have 
regard  for  that  child's  temperament,  his 
distinctive  traits. 

The  severest  test  of  our  respect  for  a 
child  comes  when  we  find  his  will  con- 
flicting with  ours.    It  is  easy  enough  to 
overbear  a  child's  will;  it  is  difficult  to 
24 


THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY 

educate  it.  The  hardest  task  of  a  parent 
is  to  retain  respect  for  a  child  while  ad- 
ministering a  spanking.  It  is  easy  to  roll 
out  the  cant  saying,  "  I  spank  you  because 
I  love  you,"  but  it  is  very  difficult  to  bring 
one's  self  into  that  frame  of  mind  in  which 
it  would  be  the  mere  truth  to  say,  "  I  spank 
you  because  I  respect  you."  Anybody, 
by  simply  being  persistent,  can  thwart  a 
child;  and  any  one  with  the  ordinary 
strength  of  an  adult  can  beat  him;  but 
no  one  who  is  unwilling  to  do  him  the 
courtesy  of  regarding  him  as  an  individual 
can  master  and  direct  a  child,  or  really 
punish  him. 

Not  long  ago  I  was  traveling  in  a  day 
coach.  In  front  of  me  were  a  man,  a 
woman,  and  a  small  boy  of  about  five 
years.  The  woman  was  the  dominant 
member  of  the  group.  Her  face,  with  its 
thin,  compressed  lips  and  its  hard  gray 
eyes,  had  a  look  of  indolent  selfishness 
with  a  suggestion  of  latent  high  temper. 
The  man  seemed  rather  dull,  weak,  and 
25 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

unhappy.  The  boy  had  the  rotund,  in- 
sensitive countenance  of  his  father;  but  he 
had  not  yet  lost  interest  in  life.  He  was 
no  more  restless  than  a  boy  of  his  age  ought 
to  be.  When  his  mother  found  his  move- 
ments disturbing,  she  darted  a  rebuke  at 
him.  For  the  moment  he  sat  still  or  moved 
out  of  the  way.  Finally  he  edged  out  into 
the  aisle.  The  woman  made  a  pretense  of 
ordering  him  back  into  the  seat.  The 
boy,  evidently  realizing  that  his  mother, 
since  she  was  now  put  to  no  inconvenience 
by  him,  had  no  intention  of  enforcing  her 
command,  remained  passively  where  he 
was.  When  his  mother's  attention  was 
distracted,  he  made  use  of  his  freedom 
to  get  a  little  mild  gymnastic  exercise. 
The  train  as  it  drew  up  to  a  station  jerkily 
stopped.  The  lurch  of  the  car  threw  the 
boy  backward  on  the  floor.  Stunned  for 
but  an  instant,  the  little  lad  sent  forth  a 
wail.  Some  of  the  passengers  turned 
around;  others  started  forward  to  the 
child.  The  woman  was  obviously  annoyed 
26 


THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY 

by  the  disturbance.  Before  the  father  had 
fairly  picked  him  up,  she  seized  the  child, 
roughly  brushed  off  his  clothes,  and  set 
him  violently  down  on  the  seat.  "You're 
a  bad  boy."  She  spat  the  words  out  at 
him  and  shook  him.  She  turned  to  her 
husband:  "I  told  him  not  to  stand  there." 
The  man  was  silenced  before  his  dull  wits 
allowed  him  the  chance  to  speak.  "Now," 
to  the  boy,  "stop  your  crying."  The 
youngster  could  not  repress  his  sobs;  he 
was  still  somewhat  dazed.  The  man 
gently  rubbed  the  back  of  the  lad's  head. 
The  woman  glanced  at  the  spectators. 
She  must  have  noticed  that  her  method 
of  avoiding  a  scene  was  not  altogether 
successful.  She  leaned  toward  the  boy. 
"Did  you  hurt  yourself?"  she  asked,  and 
took  him  into  her  lap.  He  let  his  head 
fall  indifferently  on  the  woman's  shoulder. 
Her  tardy  and  rather  formal  caresses 
aroused  no  response.  She  put  him  back 
on  the  seat,  less  ungently  than  before. 
"Now  will  you  be  good  ?" 
27 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

If  any  but  the  fool  is  ever  tempted  to 
doubt  the  existence  of  God,  it  is  when  he 
reflects  that  children  are  intrusted  to  the 
mercy  of  such  women  as  this.  None  of 
us  is  of  her  breed.  We  do  not  like  her 
coarseness.  We  should  never  allow  our- 
selves to  make  the  mistake  she  made  — 
of  being  found  out.  She  was  too  frank 
with  her  emotions.  She  had  not  the  skill 
to  conceal  the  springs  of  her  conduct. 
What  difference,  at  bottom,  however,  is 
there  between  her  and  us  when  we  are 
governed,  in  disciplining  a  child,  by  the 
degree  of  our  own  displeasure  ?  Every 
one  of  us  has  been,  on  occasions,  at  heart 
as  incompetent  as  this  vulgar  female.  We 
have  all  of  us  judged  children,  at  one  time 
and  another,  by  their  conformity  to  our 
will.  A  very  good  woman  it  was,  of  the 
straitest  New  England  doctrines,  who 
sent  a  boy  supperless  to  bed  because, 
while  putting  on  his  overcoat,  he  acci- 
dentally toppled  over  and  smashed  a 
prized  vase.  That  boy  is  now  a  man  gray 
28 


THE  WILL  AND  THE 

with  years  and  laden  with  honors;  but  to 
this  day  he  has  not  forgotten  the  fact  that 
he  was  made  to  suffer,  not  for  his  own 
fault,  but  for  his  aunt's  disappointment. 

The  only  thing  that  will  free  us  from 
the  futile  way  of  the  ogreish  woman  on 
the  railway  car  and  the  austere  Puritan 
lady  is  an  abiding  respect  for  our  children. 
This  will  save  us  from  attributing  to  our 
children  our  own  willfulness.  To  be 
authoritative  with  children  is  son  0(&' 
else  besides  being  opinionated.  The  _v  i- 
ionated  may  compel  obedience;  but  only 
the  authoritative  secure  it.  And  even  the 
opinionated  find  obedience  not  easy  of 
compulsion.  When  caprice  assumes  com- 
mand, I  have  a  sly  conviction  that  dis- 
obedience becomes  a  virtue.  Preliminary 
to  teaching  children  how  to  obey  is  the 
process  of  learning  how  to  command. 
When  a  child  is  intransigent,  it  is  worth 
while  to  consider  whether  it  is  not  he  that 
is  administering  a  rebuke. 

Sometimes   resistance  to   even   rightful 
29 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

authority  is  not  as  depraved  as  we,  who 
do  not  fancy  being  resisted,  delude  our- 
selves into  thinking.  There  comes  the 
time  when  any  child  will  exult  at  the  dis- 
covery that  he  is  a  being  apart.  He 
naturally  wants  to  measure  his  will,  and 
his  mother's  or  his  father's  will  is  the 
handiest  standard  of  comparison.  A  test 
of  that  sort  is  sometimes  disconcerting. 
A  five-year-old,  too  much  given  to  sliding 
down  from  his  chair  at  meal-time,  was 
warned  by  his  father  that  whenever  in  the 
future  he  should  leave  his  chair,  he  should 
not  be  allowed  to  return  to  the  table.  Soon 
afterwards  the  boy  disappeared  from  his 
place.  He  had  evidently  renewed  his 
slippery  ways,  and  had  made  up  his  mind 
to  lurk  beneath  the  table  and  await  results. 
Intent  upon  the  enforcement  of  the  decree, 
his  father  said  sternly,  "You  may  be  ex- 
cused." Forthwith  a  head  of  tousled  hair 
was  thrust  above  the  level  of  the  table. 
"  But  I  did  n't  leave  my  chair."  Sure 
enough,  there  he  lay  prone  across  the  seat, 

3° 


THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY 

like  a  bag  of  meal  on  an  ass's  back.  His 
father  had  to  find  what  scant  refuge  he 
could  in  the  permissive  form  of  his  sen- 
tence of  dismissal.  The  lad's  wits  had 
won  a  victory  for  his  will.  Those  who 
enter  such  an  engagement  without  recon- 
noitring must  accept  the  risk,  and,  if 
they  wish  to  preserve  the  advantage  of  a 
commanding  position,  must  abide  by  the 
results  of  any  such  skirmish.  To  turn  it 
into  a  battle  of  wills  is  to  commit  the  blun- 
der of  underestimating  their  opponent's 
strength.  A  child's  will  is  not  a  fragile 
thing.  It  is  not  "broken"  when  it  is  over- 
come by  another  will  reinforced  by  phys- 
ical strength.  An  old  lady  of  Maine,  now 
gone  to  her  own  place,  —  which  I  venture 
to  say  is  not  far  from  that  of  Luther  and 
Knox  and  Jonathan  Edwards,  —  once  told 
me  how,  when  a  small  girl,  she  had  had 
her  will  broken;  she  recounted  the  pas- 
sionate resistance,  the  screaming  protes- 
tation, the  convulsive  and  futile  rage 
exhausted  only  by  hours  of  kicking  and 

3? 


pounding  the  floor,  and  her  final  capitu- 
lation, announced  by  her  picking  up  the 
toy  which,  in  defiance  of  her  father's 
order,  she  had  at  first  refused  to  touch. 
She  gloried  in  this  Spartan  training,  and 
deplored  the  lack  of  it  in  the  present 
degenerate  generation.  It  was  this  same 
old  lady,  with  the  "broken"  will,  who, 
rejecting  all  advances,  stanchly  main- 
tained her  side  in  a  family  feud  to,  I  be- 
lieve, her  dying  day.  Her  will,  it  is  plain, 
had  not  even  been  cracked ;  it  showed  not 
so  much  as  a  suture;  neither  had  it  been 
trained.  The  only  treatment  it  had  re- 
ceived had  been  one  of  contumely.  The 
old  lady  was  not  exactly  to  blame  for  the 
outcome. 

If  we  respect  a  child's  will,  we  shall  give 
it  a  chance  to  operate.  We  do  not  thereby 
surrender  a  pea's  weight  of  authority.  A 
certain  young  mother,  let  us  say,  believes 
that  there  is  a  sort  of  unselfishness  that 
has  no  part  in  love:  she  will  not  relieve 
her  children  of  effort  and  responsibility. 
32 


THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY 

One  of  her  brood,  a  lad  of  seven,  with  a 
touch  of  dreaminess  in  his  mobile  face, 
with  impatience  of  the  material  restraints 
of  time  and  space,  with  a  will  of  his  own 
that  is  the  harder  to  direct  because  it  is 
seldom  aggressive,  is  engaged  in  propel- 
ling a  vast  tow  of  block  barges  along  the 
river  that  winds  across  the  nursery  floor. 
Of  his  companions,  one  is  umpiring  a 
game  of  football  between  teams  of  leaden 
soldiers,  and  the  other  is  constructing  a 
fearsome  dungeon  ten  blocks  deep.  At 
the  door  appears  Authority.  "It  is  now 
bur  o'clock,"  she  announces.  "At  a 
quarter  past  four  I  want  to  have  all  the 
blocks  and  toys  put  away."  The  football 
umpire  and  the  dungeon-builder,  sniffing 
a  prospective  treat,  bring  their  operations 
to  an  abrupt  close.  The  lad  of  dreams 
listens  abstractedly,  and  then  turns  with 
great  puffing  and  snorting  to  his  labors 
of  navigation.  Inattention  ?  Partly;  but 
partly,  too,  a  deliberate  choice  of  present 
pleasure  and  a  willful  rejection  of  the 

33 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

words  of  authority.  Ten,  eleven,  twelve 
minutes  pass.  Again  sounds  the  authorita- 
tive voice.  "In  three  minutes  it  will  be  a 
quarter  past  four.  I  shall  want  you  then 
to  begin  to  wash  and  dress  for  a  drive. 
Eric,  I  am  afraid  you  won't  be  able  to  go 
with  us;  your  blocks  are  not  put  away." 
She  might,  of  course,  justly  tell  him  then 
and  there  that  he  will  not  be  allowed  to 
go;  she  chooses,  however,  the  better  way, 
and  lets  him  wrestle  with  the  situation. 
"You  had  better  not  stop  to  cry,"  she 
warns  him;  "there  is  no  tii 
In  fractious  misery  he  hurriec 
his  belated  task.  His  will,  so  far 
being  broken  or  weakened,  is  actually 
stiffened ;  but  it  is  now  enlisted  on  the  side 
of  authority.  The  others  —  not  a  whit 
more  virtuous,  by  the  way,  but  only  more 
sagacious  —  are  half  dressed  before  he 
has  put  his  blocks  in  order.  If  he  fails  to 
overtake  them,  he  will  stand  disconsolate, 
abject,  perhaps  tempestuous,  and  watch 
them  depart.  He  has  had  his  way,  but  he 
34 


THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY 

has  won  no  victory;  he  has  simply  learned 
the  cost  of  willfulness.  If  he  succeeds  in 
overtaking  them,  he  will  not  have  lost  his 
lesson.  His  mother,  it  is  true,  will  not 
exactly  have  had  her  way;  but  she  reckons 
that  no  loss,  as  her  way  was  not  her  end; 
she  will  have  enlisted  his  will.  The  victory 
which  the  boy  will  have  won  is  not  over 
her.  The  only  antagonist  he  has  had  is 
himself.  Because  of  her  respect  for  him, 
he  will  now  have  a  new  respect  for  him- 
self and  for  her.  He  is  on  the  road  to 
acquiring  the  will  to  obey. 

it  had  been  one  of  the  other  two  who 
ad  disobeyed,  her  course  might  have 
been  different.  A  sullen,  recalcitrant  will, 
open-eyed,  calculating,  defiant,  might 
easily  suggest  a  different  treatment.  "You 
have  chosen  your  leaden  soldiers;  now 
leaden  soldiers  it  shall  be.  Since  you  did 
not  make  your  duty  your  choice,  then  I 
shall  arrange  matters  so  that  your  choice 
shall  be  your  duty.  Nothing  but  leaden 
soldiers  till  we  return."  Such  a  variation 
35 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

in  the  treatment  of  children  smacks  not 
in  the  least  of  partiality.  It  simply  means 
that  respect  for  the  child  has  involved 
respect  for  his  individuality.  The  maxim, 
Let  the  punishment  fit  the  crime,  may 
express  a  principle  of  action  useful  for  the 
government  of  a  State  or  of  a  school ;  but 
for  the  purposes  of  the  home  it  should  be 
altered  so  as  to  read,  Let  the  punishment 
fit  the  child. 

This  ought  to  be  the  answer  whenever 
that  question  arises  that  still  serves  the 
purpose  of  discussion  in  the  correspond- 
ence columns  of  the  newspapers,  Is  cor- 
poral punishment  defensible  ?  The  con- 
ventional answer  nowadays  is,  No.  This 
is  supposed  to  betoken  the  benignant 
mind.  Any  other  answer  nowadays  classi- 
fies one  as  an  autocratic  brute.  It  seems 
to  be  assumed  that  corporal  punishment 
must  necessarily  be  administered  in  the 
jaunty  spirit  of  the  Chinese  proverb  which 
runs:  "A  cloudy  day  —  leisure  to  beat 
the  children."  Real  tenderness  of  heart, 

36 


so  runs  the  accepted  modern  doctrine, 
forbids  the  infliction  of  physical  pain.  In 
all  these  discussions,  however,  one  con- 
sideration seems  to  be  ignored  —  a  decent 
respect  for  children.  To  one  who  is  gov- 
erned by  this  consideration,  there  is  only 
one  answer  to  the  question,  Do  you  believe 
in  spanking  a  child  ?  That  answer  is 
comprised  in  another  question,  What 
child  ?  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  as  far  as 
Menander,  who  declared,  "He  who  is 
not  flogged  is  not  educated,"  to  be  con- 
vinced that  a  good  many  children  have 
been  deprived  of  their  rights  because  they 
have  never  been  spanked. 

There  was  once  a  little  girl  who  could 
never  forget  the  indignity  she  suffered  in 
a  spanking  she  had  received.  She  grew 
up  with  her  mind  resolutely  set  against 
all  corporal  punishment.  In  the  course 
of  time  she  was  married  and  had  two 
children.  With  one  of  them  she  had  no 
problems  of  discipline;  but  with  the  other, 
a  daughter,  she  had  problems  that  taxed 
37 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

her  wits  to  the  utmost.  At  times  the  little 
girl  seemed  verily  possessed.  At  last,  in 
desperation,  this  harassed  mother,  driven 
into  recreancy  to  her  own  principle,  re- 
sorted to  the  form  of  chastisement  she 
had  forsworn.  The  effect  was  instanta- 
neous. The  child  was  relieved,  as  it  were, 
from  herself.  With  some  temperaments 
in  some  moods  the  rod  is  like  the  wand  of 
a  magician.  The  childish  petulance,  the 
outburst  of  temper,  the  streak  of  almost 
malicious  perversity,  is  but  the  child's 
way  of  expressing  his  quarrel  with  him- 
self; and  when  the  sharp  physical  pain 
comes,  it  seems  to  announce  the  subjuga- 
tion of  an  enemy.  In  a  household  there 
are  three  children.  One,  sensitive  to  phys- 
ical pain,  shrivels  and  warps  at  the  very 
prospect  of  it;  a  second  is  deterred  from 
no  act  by  the  fear  of  it,  and  is  altered  not 
a  whit  by  the  memory  of  it;  the  third 
seems  to  find  in  it  the  comforting  sense 
of  being  mastered  at  those  times  when 
he  is  out  of  sorts  with  himself,  and  re- 

38 


THE  WILL  AND  THE  WAY 

sponds  to  it  with  renewed  affection  and 
restored  sweetness  of  temper.  For  the 
mother  of  that  trio  academic  discussions 
on  corporal  punishment  are  not  only  un- 
interesting —  they  are  positively  irritating. 
She  has  paid  her  children  the  decent  re- 
spect of  considering  their  temperaments. 


Ill 

BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

AT  a  dinner-table  one  evening,  a  man 
who  was  interested  in  his  own  chil- 
dren stated  a  rule  by  which  he  made  sure 
that  no  child  of  his  would  disobey  him. 
The  rule  is  infallible.  He  remarked  to  his 
companion :  — 

"I  never  give  a  command  to  my  chil- 
dren." 

"What  do  you  do  ?"   he  was  asked. 

"I  tell  them  stories." 

That  expresses  a  perfectly  intelligible 
policy:  Abdicate,  and  you  will  never 
have  a  disobedient  child.  You  will  also 
never  have  an  obedient  one.  The  fact  that 
the  man  who  made  this  statement  was  an 
Anarchist  explains  his  theory.  He  re- 
garded obedience  not  as  a  virtue,  but  as 
a  defect.  He  was  altogether  consistent^ 
A  disbeliever  in  government  for  society, 
40 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

he  declined  to  establish  any  government 
for  his  family.  In  place  of  government, 
however,  he  at  least  took  pains  to  estab- 
lish something  else.  This  was  a  system- 
atic appeal  to  the  child's  imagination. 

If  one  had  to  choose  between  govern- 
ment and  influence  over  children  through 
the  imagination,  there  might  be  some 
reason  for  discarding  government.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  use  of  the 
imagination,  so  far  from  being  antago- 
nistic to  effective  government,  is  indis- 
pensable to  it.  The  reason  why  we 
parents  so  often  fail  in  securing  obedi- 
ence, and,  what  is  more  important  still, 
in  developing  in  our  children  the  spirit 
of  obedience,  is  that  we  are  deficient  in 
imagination  —  or  at  least  that  what  imagi- 
nation we  have  is  untrained. 

In  this  faculty  in  which  we  are  weak, 
children  are  strong.  A  little  four-year- 
old  I  know,  in  making  letters  for  his  own 
amusement,  frequently  attaches  arms  and 
legs  to  them ;  it  is  his  way  of  pictorially 
41 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

representing  the  animation  he  ascribes 
to  them.  Indeed,  he  sometimes  goes  so 
far  as  to  transfer  in  mind  these  limbs  to 
the  object  which  the  letters  spell.  Thus, 
he  laboriously  prints  the  letters  P-I-G, 
adds  to  each  letter  a  lively  pair  of  legs, 
and  exclaims:  "See,  the  pig  is  running!" 
Mental  processes  like  that,  complicated 
though  it  is,  are  common  with  children. 
A  child  left  alone  in  the  nursery  with  his 
blocks  will  find  them  transformed  into 
trains,  steamboats,  people,  trees,  animals, 
whatever  he  wills.  In  this  picturesque 
form  imagination  may  be  called  fancy; 
but  it  has  many  other  phases.  Imagina- 
tion is  an  element  in  memory.  Ability 
to  recall  a  sound  requires  imagination. 
When,  for  instance,  a  child  repeats  a 
word  he  has  heard  some  one  use,  his 
imagination  has  enabled  him  to  summon 
up  the  sound  of  that  word.  Imagination 
is  an  element  in  emulation.  When  a 
child  is  trying  to  outdo  another,  or  outdo 
his  own  past  performances,  he  has  to 
42 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

picture  to  his  mind  what  he  or  his  com- 
petitor has  done  and  what  the  desirable 
outcome  of  the  struggle  would  be.  Ima- 
gination is  an  element  even  in  fear  and 
hope.  When  a  child  dreads  a  punish- 
ment or  eagerly  awaits  a  reward,  it  is 
his  imagination  that  gives  him  the  power 
to  anticipate. 

Like  every  other  instinct,  imagination 
needs  training.  We  all  carry  about  with 
us  a  menagerie  of  instincts.  Some  of 
them  have  been  ill-treated.  In  what  a 
pitiable  shape  is  the  dyspeptic's  food 
instinct!  It  has  died  of  over-indulgence, 
and  its  corpse  mocks  him  at  every  meal. 
The  instinct  of  righting  has  been  given 
a  bad  name,  and  in  many  a  well-con- 
ducted menagerie  is  kept  chained;  but 
it  has  been  known  to  survive  the  most 
rigorous  repression,  and  to  spring  out 
with  most  abounding  vitality  in  the  midst 
of  a  meeting  on  behalf  of  peace.  We 
have  learned  to  avoid  those  people  whose 
instinct  of  curiosity  is  not  bridle -wise; 

43 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

find  we  all  have  recourse  at  times  to  those 
who  have  nourished,  groomed,  and  trained 
their  play  instinct.  The  fact  is,  that  the 
process  of  education  consists  largely  in 
transforming  these  instincts  of  ours,  which 
in  their  original  state  are  wild  and  un- 
manageable, into  domesticated  and  useful 
habits. 

Now,  imagination  is  a  vigorous  beast. 
Its  youthful  antics  are  very  picturesque 
and  amusing;  it  is  sometimes  whimsical 
and  troublesome;  but  it  can  be  made  of 
the  greatest  service.  Indeed,  for  all  kinds 
of  work,  I  know  of  no  species  of  instinct 
which  I  would  more  highly  recommend. 
As  a  draught  animal  it  is  indefatigable; 
and  nothing  else  can  take  its  place  for 
pleasure-driving.  Yet  I  have  heard  of  a 
private  school  for  young  women  from 
which  all  fairy  books  are  excluded,  on 
the  ground  that  a  girl's  imagination  needs 
repression.  Like  some  other  instincts,  im- 
agination cannot  be  altogether  repressed, 
though  it  can  be  tamed  and  guided.  If  it 
44 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

is  left  boxed  up  and  wild,  it  is  apt  to  break 
out  and  take  a  canter  through  dangerous 
regions.  Since,  then,  we  cannot  take  a 
child's  imagination  from  him,  and  we  run 
into  peril  if  we  neglect  it,  the  profitable 
course  is  to  show  him  how  to  break  it  to 
harness  and  make  it  serve  him. 

We  cannot  do  this,  however,  unless  we 
have  paid  some  attention  to  the  training 
of  our  own  imagination.  As  a  wild  young 
colt  will  trot  about  beside  its  dam,  so  a 
child's  imagination  will  readily  follow 
that  of  an  older  person.  But  the  two  must 
be  at  least  in  the  same  lot.  If  we  are  going 
to  appeal  to  a  child's  imagination  in  teach- 
ing him  how  to  obey,  we  must  exercise 
some  imagination  in  giving  commands. 
We  thus  come  upon  that  recurrent  prin- 
ciple that  the  chief  task  in  the  training  of 
children  is  the  training  of  ourselves. 

That  imagination  may  be  used  in  main- 
taining strictness  of  discipline  seems  to 
some  to  be  almost  a  contradiction  in 
terms.  It  seems  like  invoking  an  imp 

45 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

of  dreams  to  assist  in  adding  up  a  column 
of  figures.  In  many  minds  imagination 
suggests  dreaminess,  wool-gathering,  way- 
wardness, irresponsibility.  That  is  one 
reason  why  we  parents  who  like  to  be 
obeyed,  who  are  inclined  to  believe  that 
it  is  a  virtue  to  be  dictatorial,  and  who 
sometimes  confuse  our  own  will  with  the 
immutable  principles  of  righteousness,  so 
often  fall  into  error.  To  a  child  there  is 
nothing  more  serious,  nothing  more  real 
and  regular,  than  the  products  of  his  im- 
agination, and  nothing  more  vague,  whim- 
sical, irregular,  than  the  unexplained 
orders  which  he  receives  from  grown  peo- 
ple. If  we  wish  to  impress  a  child  with  the 
seriousness  and  reality  of  our  authority, 
we  had  better  put  our  imagination  into 
condition. 

There  were  two  small  boys  in  a  town 
of  the  Middle  West.  Active,  spirited, 
mischievous,  and  in  other  respects  healthy, 
these  two  lads  —  the  younger  about  four 
years  old,  I  believe  —  gave  their  father 
46 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

and  mother  much  concern.  One  day  an 
old  drill-sergeant  established  in  the  neigh- 
borhood a  class  for  boys,  and  in  a  short 
time  received  these  two  as  pupils.  The 
transformation  was  sudden.  The  boys 
were  soldiers.  Happily,  their  mother  was 
imaginative.  They  were  therefore  soldiers 
not  merely  in  the  class,  but  also  at  home. 
The  standards  of  conduct  put  before  them, 
the  punishments  dealt  out  to  them,  and 
the  rewards  bestowed  upon  them  were  such 
as  befitted  defenders  of  the  home.  Obedi- 
ence, promptness,  chivalry,  order,  cour- 
age, regularity,  honor,  truthfulness,  were 
not  unreasonable  qualities  to  expect  from 
such  as  they.  When  one  of  these  war- 
riors was  absent  without  leave  for  the 
greater  part  of  a  day  —  in  other  words, 
ran  away  —  it  was  not  inappropriate  that 
he  should  be  kept  in  solitary  confinement 
on  short  rations.  The  discipline  meted 
out  to  those  youngsters  was,  from  any 
point  of  view,  severe.  Even  corporal 
punishment,  which,  as  ordinarily  applied, 

47 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

is  crudely  devoid  of  the  imaginative  ele- 
ment, became  measurably  glorified ;  it 
was  a  part  of  the  hardship  which  they 
were  called  upon  to  endure  as  good  sol- 
diers. Of  course  this  regime  was  accom- 
panied with  plenty  of  instruction  in  mili- 
tary traditions  and  practices.  A  con- 
stant visitor  to  that  household  has  found 
in  the  manliness  and  good  breeding  of 
these  children  a  source  of  amazed  grati- 
fication. In  another  family,  who  had  no 
access  to  a  drill-sergeant  with  a  streak 
of  poetry,  a  somewhat  different  method 
has  been  in  vogue.  The  boys  in  that 
family  do  not  belong,  as  it  were,  to  the 
regular  army,  but  rather  to  the  militia. 
They  are  not  always  under  a  military 
regime,  but  are  liable  to  a  summons  at 
any  time.  When  they  hear  the  com- 
mand, "Fall  in,"  they  know  they  are 
expected  to  stand  in  line  and  await 
orders.  In  the  absence  of  their  parents, 
they  know  that  the  older  person  left  in 
charge  is  their  commanding  officer;  and 
48 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

upon  their  parents'  return  they  know 
that  they  will  be  called  upon  to  fall  into 
line,  salute,  and  report  to  their  father. 
Each  is  supposed  to  report  any  infraction 
of  discipline  which  he  himself  —  not  his 
comrades  —  has  committed.  No  punish- 
ment is  administered  as  a  result  of  such 
report,  except  for  deliberate  concealment. 
Each  also  reports  some  especial  pleasure 
he  has  had.  A  good  report  is  followed 
by  formal  and  official  congratulation. 
A  reminder  in  the  form  of  a  sign,  marked 
"Remember  the  Report,"  and  placed  in 
a  conspicuous  position  in  the  nursery, 
has  helped  to  train  and  direct  their  imagi- 
nation. Since  the  report  includes  a  record 
of  enjoyments  as  well  as  of  offenses,  this 
reminder  is  not  so  threatening  as  to  many 
people  it  would  seem.  Indeed,  the  pro- 
posal that  such  a  sign  be  used  met  with  in- 
stant approval  from  the  young  militiamen. 
Those  who  object  to  tin  soldiers  as 
toys  will  have  little  patience  with  this 
metamorphosis  of  real  children  into  crea- 
49 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

tures  of  militarism.  Very  well,  let  them 
be  monks  instead,  or  members  of  a  labor 
union,  or  railway  employees,  or  idealized 
legislators,  or  even  honest  policemen,  any- 
thing that  will  not  put  too  great  a  strain 
on  the  imagination  —  of  the  adults.  The 
point  is  simply  that  the  exercise  of  the 
strictest  authority  over  children  is  com- 
patible with  the  most  lavish  use  of  the 
imagination. 

There  is  nothing  necessarily  soft  or 
flabby  about  the  imaginative  life.  There 
is  no  special  reason  why  little  children 
should  be  afflicted  with  continual  talk 
about  the  dear  little  birdies  or  the  sweet 
little  flowers.  Indeed,  the  natural  taste 
of  children  seems  to  be  attracted  in  the 
opposite  direction.  One  small  boy,  when 
he  inquired  about  a  bloody  Bible  picture, 
and  was  put  off  with  the  explanation  that 
it  was  not  a  pleasant  story,  expressed  the 
views  of  many  of  his  age  when,  looking 
up  angelically,  he  exclaimed  with  ecstasy, 
"I  like  to  hear  about  horrid  things." 
5° 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

Even  the  rod  can,  as  I  have  suggested, 
be  used  imaginatively.  A  small  boy  who 
is  well  acquainted  with  the  story  of  the 
Israelites  in  Egypt  has  invoked  its  aid. 
He  is  not  overburdened  with  a  sense  of 
moral  responsibility.  One  day,  when  he 
was  dawdling  over  his  task  of  changing 
his  shoes  and  stockings,  it  was  suggested 
that  his  father  be  an  Egyptian  and  he 
be  an  Israelitish  slave.  He  joyfully  ac- 
quiesced. His  father  took  the  tip  of  a 
bamboo  fishing-rod  as  badge  of  author- 
ity and  stood  by.  In  a  few  moments 
the  boy  was  dawdling.  A  slight  rap  over 
the  shins  recalled  him  to  his  duty.  There 
was  no  complaint;  for  he  knew  it  was 
the  business  of  the  overseer  to  keep  the 
slave  at  his  task.  His  shoes  and  stock- 
ings were  changed  in  a  very  much  shorter 
time  than  was  customary;  and  he  con- 
templated his  finished  work  with  satis- 
faction. A  few  days  later,  when  he  had 
a  similar  task  to  perform,  he  proposed  of 
his  own  accord  a  repetition  of  the  perform- 

51 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

ance;  and  carried  out  his  part  with  spirit 
When  we  adults  remember  how  much  we 
rely  upon  some  outside  stimulus  to  keep 
us  at  our  work  —  the  need  of  money,  the 
esteem  of  our  neighbors,  the  fear  of 
disease,  the  mandate  of  the  law  —  we 
ought  to  be  able  to  understand  the  reason 
why  such  an  appeal  to  the  imagination 
as  this  acted  as  a  reinforcement  of  the 
boy's  will,  and  therefore,  by  very  reason 
of  its  disciplinary  character,  was  actually 
welcomed. 

Two  other  boys  similarly  acquainted 
with  the  experiences  of  Israel  in  Egypt 
contrived  an  application  of  one  of  those 
experiences  to  their  own  case.  They  had 
several  times  been  thrilled  by  the  account 
of  the  exciting  race  between  the  Israelites 
and  the  Egyptians  to  the  Red  Sea,  and 
had  repeatedly  found  relief  in  the  safe 
arrival  of  the  Israelites  on  the  other  side 
and  the  literally  overwhelming  defeat  of 
the  cruel  army  of  Pharaoh.  One  evening 
their  mother  was  engaged  in  washing 
52 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

the  supper  dishes,  and  they  were  engaged, 
*s  usual,  in  helping  her  by  wiping  the 
silver.  On  several  occasions  they  had 
been  so  little  intent  on  their  work  that 
their  mother  had  finished  all  the  washing 
and  had  wiped  the  china  and  glassware 
before  they  had  wiped  and  put  away  the 
silver.  This  evening  one  of  them  sud- 
denly became  seized  with  a  fancy.  His 
mother  was  the  Egyptian  army  and  he 
and  his  comrade  were  the  host  of  Israel. 
When  the  last  fork  had  rattled  into  its  place 
and  the  silver-drawer  was  shut,  what  a 
shout  of  joy  arose!  The  Egyptians  had 
been  outdistanced;  the  Israelites  were 
safe.  After  that,  when  there  were  signs 
of  inattention,  the  warning  cry,  "The 
Egyptians  are  coming!"  would  rouse 
them  into  instant  and  happy  action. 
Now  those  children  usually  do  this  work 
rapidly.  They  have  formed  in  themselves 
a  valuable  habit. 

That  was   not   a    device.     It  was  the 
exemplification  of  a  principle.    A  habit, 

53 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

I  suppose,  can  be  beaten  into  a  child; 
but  it  is  more  lasting  as  well  as  more 
wholesome  if  it  has  been  created,  in  part 
at  least,  by  the  child's  own  will;  and  it 
is  the  imagination,  charged  as  it  is  with 
feeling,  which  can  most  surely  summon 
the  will  into  activity. 

The  difference  between  ignoring  this 
principle  and  recognizing  it  may  be 
illustrated  by  contrasting  two  concrete 
instances.  In  the  one  case  the  mother 
appears  at  the  nursery  door. 

"  Look  at  this  room ! "  she  exclaims ;  "  it 
is  very  untidy."  She  thus  puts  the  brand 
of  disapproval  upon  disorder.  "All  the 
blocks  and  toys  must  be  put  away  and 
you  must  be  all  washed  for  supper  by 
six  o'clock;  and  you  have  so  much  to 
do,  you  must  begin  at  once." 

"But  I  want  to  build  this  house." 

"No;    you  must  begin  now."    This  is 

for  the  purpose,  the  mother  explains  to 

herself,   of  preparing   the   child   to   meet 

the  harsh  demands  of  an  unfeeling  world. 

54 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

She  notes  that  the  child  begins  list- 
lessly to  pick  up  some  of  the  scattered 
blocks,  one  by  one,  and  drop  them  into 
the  box  where  they  are  kept.  After  an 
absence  of  several  minutes  she  returns. 
She  sees  but  little  change,  although  the 
child  is  hastily  putting  some  toys  away. 
She  is  aware,  however,  that  this  activity 
started  only  when  her  footfall  sounded 
in  the  hall. 

"If  those  things  are  not  all  in  their 
places  on  time,  I  shall  have  to  punish  you." 

The  mother  is  vexed,  the  child  is 
unhappy  and  rebellious.  A  daily  expe- 
rience of  this  sort  may  result  finally  in 
some  kind  of  habit  in  the  child ;  but  only 
at  great  cost  of  effort  to  the  mother,  and 
at  the  sacrifice  of  much  of  the  normal 
relationship  between  the  two. 

Another  mother  appears  at  the  door 
of  the  nursery. 

"In  five  minutes  it  will  be  time  to 
begin  to  put  away  the  blocks  and  toys," 
she  announces,  thus  giving  some  time 

55 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

for  the  builder  to  complete  operations. 
Then  she  asks,  "What  are  you  going  to 
be  this  evening  ?" 

"I  think  I'll  be  Michael  bringing  the 
wood  to  the  wood-box  for  the  fire." 

In  five  minutes  she  calls:  "Michael,  I 
want  all  the  wood  put  into  the  wood- 
box." 

The  builder  is  now  transformed  for 
the  time  being  into  Michael.  He  has 
seen  the  lusty  Irishman  carry  great  arm- 
fuls  of  wood,  and  his  own  frail  arms 
assume  new  dignity.  He  gathers  the 
blocks  by  the  dozen,  and  as  he  lets  them 
fall,  kerplunk,  into  the  box,  he  sees  great 
logs  falling  into  place.  In  a  few  moments 
his  mother  reappears. 

"You  have  been  working  hard,  Michael, 
have  n't  you  ?  I  think  you  will  have  the 
wood  in  its  place  in  plenty  of  time.  How 
much  better  the  room  looks  without  those 
logs  of  wood  lying  all  about!  You  can 
carry  a  good  many  logs  at  once,  can't 
you  ?" 

56 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

Repeated  every  day,  this  process  will 
inevitably  develop  into  a  habit  of  order- 
liness. The  regularity  of  the  process  is 
not  in  the  least  impaired  by  the  fact  that 
one  evening  it  assumes  the  form  of  stack- 
ing up  firewood,  another  evening  of 
bringing  in  bags  of  coal  to  the  cellar, 
another  evening  of  loading  merchandise 
on  to  a  vessel.  It  is  the  same  will  that 
directs  Michael,  and  the  coal  man,  and 
the  stevedore,  and  it  is  the  same  brain 
that  receives  the  repeated  impression  of 
promptness  and  good  order.  In  each 
case,  whether  it  is  Michael,  or  the  coal 
man,  or  the  stevedore,  the  workman 
is  doing  his  task  under  orders;  he  is 
subject  to  authority.  And  if  Michael,  or 
the  coal  man,  or  the  stevedore  fails  to  do 
his  duty,  it  is  not  inappropriate  that  he 
should  suffer  a  penalty.  Of  course  it  will 
be  more  effective  if  the  penalty  can  be 
made  suitable  to  the  character.  Whether 
it  is  made  suitable  or  not  will  depend 
largely  upon  the  imagination  of  the  person 

57 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

in  authority.  As  a  rule,  however,  the  spirit 
of  such  a  process  as  that  which  I  have  illus- 
trated is  less  that  of  discipline  than  of 
instruction,  or  perhaps  more  accurately, 
the  spirit  of  discipline  through  instruction. 
It  is,  in  fact,  just  because  instruction 
plays  so  large  a  part  in  the  government 
of  children  that  those  in  authority  need 
to  have  constant  recourse  to  their  imagi- 
nation. 

Deficiency  in  imagination  is  exhibited 
by  parents  not  merely  in  their  relation  to 
their  children,  but  quite  as  frequently  in 
the  relation  between  husband  and  wife. 
Criticism  of  the  one  by  the  other  in  the 
presence  of  the  children  can  be  accounted 
for,  as  a  rule,  only  by  a  defective  imagi- 
nation. If  the  critic  could  be  put  for  a 
moment  in  the  place  of  the  child  who  has 
heard  the  reproof,  he  would  be  amazed 
at  discovering  how  he  had  weakened  not 
only  the  mother's  authority,  but  also  his 
own.  In  a  certain  household,  let  us  say, 
the  mother  is  strongly  of  the  opinion  that 

58 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

it  is  injurious  for  the  children  to  eat  any- 
thing between  meals ;  the  father,  however, 
scouts  the  idea,  and  actually  keeps,  in  his 
pocket,  sweetmeats  for  which  he  invites 
the  children  to  search.  If  he  had  imagina- 
tion enough  to  look  into  his  own  children's 
minds,  he  would  be  mortified  at  what 
he  would  see.  Parents  at  cross-purposes 
are  simply  exhibiting  their  own  stupidity. 
Without  imagination,  therefore,  there  can 
be  only  the  most  ineffective  government 
in  the  family. 

It  is  surprising,  on  the  other  hand, 
how  the  exercise  of  the  imagination  will 
clear  away  many  perplexing  difficulties  in 
discipline;  for  in  the  light  of  the  imagi- 
nation many  of  these  difficulties  are  seen 
to  be  problems  in  moral  instruction.  Let 
me  illustrate. 

The  boys  whom  I  have  already  de- 
scribed as  militiamen  were  left  by  their 
parents,  for  a  day,  in  charge  of  a  compe- 
tent nurse.  When  they  were  called  upon 
to  report  in  the  customary  military  fashion 

59 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

concerning  their  behavior,  they  all  con- 
fessed to  certain  offenses  involving  the 
marring  of  property. 

"Would  you  have  done  that  if  mamma 
or  I  had  been  there?"  their  father  asked. 

"No,"  was  the  reply. 

"Then  you  sneaked  on  us." 

That  word  "sneaked"  was  apparently 
new  to  them;  it  upset  their  gravity. 
The  entire  company,  including  the  com- 
mander, was  soon  convulsed.  What  could 
be  done  ?  The  case  could  not  be  allowed 
to  end  thus.  Finally,  after  some  degree 
of  order  was  restored,  the  commander 
proposed  that  they  all  take  turns  in  sneak- 
ing on  one  another.  The  plan  which  was 
accepted  with  enthusiasm  was  this:  Two 
of  the  boys  were  to  leave  the  room ;  then 
the  third,  in  their  absence,  was  to  find 
some  precious  possession  of  each  of  the 
two  and  destroy  it.  No  sooner,  however, 
were  the  victims  in  another  room  than  they 
raised  a  vigorous  protest.  As  this  was  to 
be  not  a  punishment  but  an  experiment, 
60 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

the  protest  was  heeded.  The  tables  were 
turned;  one  of  the  victims  was  appointed 
executioner,  and  the  executioner  took  the 
place  of  victim.  After  several  trials  it  was 
proved  that  nobody  wished  to  have  his 
property  destroyed.  They  thus  learned 
that,  however  much  fun  it  was  to  sneak 
on  some  one  else,  they  did  not  wish  any 
one  else  to  sneak  on  them.  Although  they 
agreed,  too,  that  if  each  had  a  turn  there 
would  be  nothing  unfair,  they  were  all 
unwilling  to  lose  precious  possessions  even 
for  the  fun  of  playing  an  underhand 
trick.  By  this  time  one  of  the  boys  had 
decided  that  all  sneaking  "was  bad." 
It  was  then  proposed  to  the  other  two 
that  their  father  go  out,  and  that  they 
should  sneak  on  him.  This  seemed  to 
be  a  solution.  They  would  have  the  fun 
and  suffer  none  of  the  loss.  When  they 
had  committed  themselves  to  this  opinion, 
their  father  called  their  attention  to  the 
fact  that  he  had  already  had  his  turn 
at  being  victim,  and  that  now  it  was  only 
6l 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

fair  that  he  should  have  his  turn  at  being 
executioner.  There  was  no  escape.  At 
the  very  moment  when  they  were  looking 
for  all  the  gain  and  none  of  the  loss,  they 
were  confronted  with  the  prospect  of 
suffering,  perfectly  justly,  all  of  the  loss 
and  having  none  of  the  gain.  By  that  time 
the  word  "sneak"  conveyed  an  idea  that 
was  quite  the  opposite  of  humorous,  and 
they  were  in  position  to  appreciate  their 
father's  repudiation  of  any  intention  to 
act  as  a  sneak.  It  was  necessary  for  them 
to  travel  a  long  and  roundabout  way 
before  they  reached  the  point  at  which 
they  could  genuinely  disapprove  what 
they  themselves  had  done.  In  the  frame 
of  mind  in  which  at  first  they  had  been, 
punishment  would  have  been  meaningless; 
it  would  have  signified  nothing  more 
than  that  an  older  person  was  vexed 
at  something,  and  that  they  had  to  bear 
the  ill  effects  of  the  vexation.  What 
they  needed  primarily  was  not  discipline 
but  instruction.  Incidentally,  it  may  be 
62 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

added,  they  had  a  good  deal  of  discipline 
in  the  process. 

We  are  likely  to  forget  that  moral  dis- 
tinctions are  not  instinctive,  but  are  the 
product  of  experience.  The  capacity  to 
distinguish  between  the  good  and  the  evil 
is,  we  may  all  agree,  inherent;  but  ability 
in  deciding  what  acts  belong  in  the  cate- 
gory of  the  good  and  what  in  the  category 
of  the  evil  is  acquired.  There  is  no  magic 
voice  within  a  little  child  informing  him 
what  a  lie  is  and  warning  him  that  it  is 
evil.  It  is  not  enough,  moreover,  to  tell 
a  child  over  and  over  again  that  lying  is 
wrong;  it  is  equally  necessary  to  instruct 
him  so  that  he  will  recognize  a  lie  when 
he  encounters  it.  The  knack  of  recogniz- 
ing the  difference  between  truth  and  false- 
hood is  like  the  knack  of  recognizing  the 
difference  between  edible  and  poisonous 
mushrooms.  It  comes  only  after  careful  in- 
struction and  long  practice,  and  it  is  not 
as  easy  as  it  seems.  Is  "Alice  in  Wonder- 
land" falsehood?  Are  the  statements  in 

63 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

Stevenson's  "Child's  Garden  of  Verses" 
true  ?  I  believe  I  could  set  an  examination 
in  the  subject,  asking  for  reasons  for  the 
answers,  which  a  good  many  parents  could 
not  satisfactorily  pass.  A  child  who  habit- 
ually lies  may  be  consciously  doing  wrong; 
but  it  is  also  possible  that  he  has  been 
simply  ill-taught,  or  is  not  old  enough  to 
be  taught  at  all  in  this  subject.  In  order 
to  reach  a  child's  mind  for  the  purpose  of 
enabling  him  to  see  the  difference  between 
a  lie  and  the  truth,  we  must  have  imagi- 
nation enough  to  put  ourselves  in  the 
child's  place  sufficiently  to  find  out  what 
his  conception  of  the  truth  is.  It  is  easy 
to  assume  that  a  child  is  lying  when  he 
is  merely  experimenting  with  language, 
or  is  desiring  to  please,  or  is  playing  with 
his  fancies.  If  we  want  children  to  under- 
stand us,  we  must  exercise  enough  ima- 
gination to  understand  them.  After  we 
have  established  some  basis  of  mutual 
understanding,  we  can  feel  free  to  proceed 
with  rigorous  discipline. 
64 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

I  hope  I  shall  not  be  misunderstood.  It 
is  not  necessary  that  a  child  should  under- 
stand the  reason  for  a  command  before  he 
obeys.  Obedience  first  and  reasons  after- 
wards is  a  good  rule,  and  one  that  may  even 
prevent  disasters.  It  is  necessary,  how- 
ever, that  a  child  should  understand  what 
it  is  he  is  commanded  to  do  or  not  to  do. 
It  requires  some  imagination  to  ascertain 
whether  the  child  understands  this  or  not. 

Instruction  in  manners,  like  instruction 
in  morals,  requires  the  use  of  the  imagi- 
nation. The  adult  who  is  receiving  his 
first  lesson  in  golf  ought  to  be  able  to 
understand  why  a  child  has  difficulty  in 
properly  holding  his  spoon;  the  difference 
between  a  niblick  and  a  stymie  is  not 
nearly  so  hard  to  learn  as  the  difference 
between  "Please"  and  "Thank  you." 
Manners  are  more  arbitrary  than  the  tech- 
nical terms  of  a  game  or  a  calling.  Why 
it  should  be  wrong  but  not  naughty  to 
eat  with  your  knife  or  to  sing  at  the  table, 
children  do  not  readily  see. 

65 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

As  with  regard  to  morals  and  manners, 
so  with  regard  to  all  that  a  child  has  to 
learn,  instruction  is  best  coupled  with 
imagination.  A  generation  ago  my  grand- 
father wrote  a  book.  Its  title  seems  to 
attach  it  to  a  long  bygone  age.  It  is  called 
"Gentle  Measures  in  the  Management 
and  Training  of  the  Young."  1  I  know  of 
no  book  which  in  spirit  or  in  principles  is 
more  modern.  I  do  not  think  its  substance 
will  ever  be  antiquated.  It  was  through  no 
fault  or  merit  of  mine  that  the  author  of 
this  book  was  my  grandfather;  so  I  can  see 
no  reason  why  I  should  not  be  as  free  as 
any  one  else  might  be  in  expressing  the 
wish  that  every  parent  who  has  some  inter- 
est in  the  training  of  children  might  not  only 
possess  a  copy,  but  also  read  it  studiously. 
His  words,  with  their  touch  of  quaintness, 
concerning  the  use  of  imagination  in  the 
teaching  of  children  were  but  the  trans- 
cript of  the  principles  which  he  had  estab- 
lished by  use  and  found  practicable. 

1  By  Jacob  Abbott.    (Harper  and  Brothers.) 

66 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

Are  the  children  restive  or  boisterous  ? 
Do  they  talk  incessantly  and  nonsensi- 
cally ?  A  little  imagination  will  suggest 
what  should  be  done  with  them.  They 
are  steam  engines  under  full  head  of 
steam.  If  you  do  not  wish  to  starve  them 
into  lassitude,  set  their  activity  to  work 
in  some  direction  that  will  not  be  trouble- 
some. Has  one  of  the  children  pinched 
his  hand  in  the  door  or  bumped  his  head  ? 
Summon  up  your  imagination.  He  is  a 
man  who  has  met  with  an  accident;  call 
the  ambulance,  which  comes  in  the  form 
of  a  two-legged  creature,  to  carry  him  to 
the  hospital,  which  to  grown-up  eyes  looks 
amazingly  like  the  couch  in  the  sewing- 
room;  give  him  some  medicine  out  of  a 
bottle,  which  has  the  appearance  of  a 
shoe-horn.  Is  there  an  altercation  in  the 
nursery  ?  Let  there  be  a  court  established, 
and  the  issue  heard  and  decided  in  due 
form.  No  retinue  of  servants  can  work 
such  wonders  as  a  moderately  alert  ima- 
gination. 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

If  we  parents  have  allowed  our  own 
imaginations  to  become  atrophied  through 
disuse,  so  that  we  are  incapacitated  from 
sharing  in  the  most  vivid  part  of  our  chil- 
dren's world,  there  is  at  least  one  thing 
we  can  do;  we  can  restrain  our  natural 
impulse  to  interfere  with  our  children's 
imagination.  For  a  generous  portion  of 
every  day  we  can  leave  our  children  alone. 
We  are,  of  course,  useful  to  them  in  emer- 
gencies, but  ordinarily  we  prosy  folk  are 
in  their  way.  What  a  nuisance  we  are 
when  we  impose  upon  an  imaginative 
child  that  horror  known  as  a  mechanical 
toy!  The  nodding  mandarin  is  so  insist- 
ently a  mandarin  that  no  child  with  a 
healthy  imagination  can  respect  it.  Off 
with  its  head!  it  then  can  conceivably  be 
the  pillar  of  a  house,  or  a  chimney  for  a 
steamboat.  Large  flat  wooden  dolls  that 
come  in  a  game-set  have  been  known  to 
serve  admirably  as  roofs  for  block  houses. 
Shall  we  allow  the  children  to  abuse  their 
toys  in  this  wise  ?  exclaims  the  prosaic 
68 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

adult.  The  children  might  well  reply, 
Must  we  be  forced  to  lose  our  real  world 
and  to  live  in  a  commonplace,  unreal 
world  like  yours  ?  Elaborate  dolls,  com- 
plicated mechanisms,  elegant  playthings, 
may  gratify  the  vanity  of  an  adult,  and 
even  whet  the  curiosity  of  the  growing 
boy  and  girl,  but  will  not  take  the  place 
of  real  toys  like  blocks  of  wood  and  spools 
and  marbles.  If  we  must  nag  him  at  other 
times,  at  least  in  his  play  let  us  leave  the 
child  alone  with  his  imagination  and  the 
materials  which  his  imagination  can  best 
use.  If  we  are  nonplussed  by  the  enjoy- 
ment which  a  child  finds  in  such  simple 
things,  it  is  because  we  have  not  the  ima- 
gination to  perceive  that  these  very  same 
simple  things  are  the  most  capable  of 
varied  transformation. 

Like  those  complicated  toys  which  are 
made  merely  because  the  adults,  who 
have  the  money,  buy  them,  some  kinder- 
gartens are  engines  of  destruction.  The 
play  instinct,  which  psychologists  kindly 

' 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

explain  is  simply  the  instinct  for  self- 
directed  activity,  is  in  mortal  peril  from 
people  who  are  always  for  supervising 
children's  games.  Controlling  the  play  of 
children  is  really  attempting  the  impossi- 
ble. As  soon  as  it  is  controlled  from  the 
outside,  play  ceases  to  be  play.  If  some 
one  else  directs  the  child,  he  ceases  to 
be  self-directed.  Play  is  not  mere  recrea- 
tion; it  is  sometimes  very  serious  business. 
What  makes  it  play  is  that  it  is  not  done 
under  orders.  And  real  play  requires 
imagination.  We  parents  can  spoil  our 
children  by  confining  them  to  the  artificial 
things  we  enjoy  in  lieu  of  our  own  minds. 
If  we  wish  to  amuse  ourselves,  we  can  do 
so  for  a  time  by  spoiling  our  children.  But 
if  we  wish  them  to  enjoy  life,  as  well  as  to 
grow  strong  in  body  and  mind  and  char- 
acter, we  will  not  tempt  them  by  the  spices, 
the  mechanisms,  the  artifices  of  our  world, 
but  will  leave  them  as  much  as  possible 
to  wander  and  play  and  work  unmolested 
in  the  world  of  simple  things.  Simple 
70 


BY  RULE  OF  WIT 

food,  simple  occupations,  simple  toys, 
simple  surroundings  —  at  least  such  we 
call  them;  in  fact,  there  are  no  riches  like 
them  to  the  child  —  or  the  adult  for  that 
matter  —  who  has  not  been  robbed  of  his 
imagination.  If  we  have  lost  ours,  and 
must  go  about  our  task  of  instruction  and 
discipline  in  the  unreal  way  of  the  dry-as- 
dust,  we  can  at  least  leave  the  child  his. 
That  is  possible  for  the  dullest  of  us. 


IV 

PEACE  AT  A   PRICE 

ADVICE  to  wives  usually  begins  with 
this  sort  of  exhortation  :  When  your 
husband  returns  from  the  office,  greet  him 
smilingly;  exile  from  your  face  the  traitor- 
ous lines  of  care,  imprison  in  the  silences 
of  your  mind  the  petty  vexing  trials  of  the 
day,  dismiss  to  their  own  quarters  the 
evidences  of  housework.  Your  husband's 
home  is  his  castle;  when  he  takes  refuge 
there  in  flight  from  his  enemies,  the  cares 
of  his  vocation,  do  not  confront  him  with 
your  own.  We  are  all  familiar  with  this 
strain.  It  sounds  well.  But,  after  all,  the 
lord's  castle  is  his  lady's  battlefield.  If 
she  is  a  very  fine  lady  indeed,  she  may 
not  have  engaged  in  any  personal  en- 
counters. If  her  resources  and  disposition 
permit,  she  may  hire  mercenaries  to  do 
her  fighting  for  her.  In  that  case  her  bat- 
72 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

ties  have  been  sham  battles,  and  she  has 
no  relic  of  carnage  to  hide.  If,  however, 
she  is  not  one  of  those  who  regard  one 
child  as  a  nuisance  and  two  as  an  intoler- 
able burden,  and  therefore  prefers  to  con- 
duct the  campaign  of  their  training  her- 
self, she  can  hardly  be  sure  of  turning 
nightly  the  battlefield  of  that  home  into 
the  semblance  of  an  impregnable  castle. 
The  fact  is,  any  woman  who  regards 
motherhood  as  a  vocation  quite  as  worthy 
of  respect  as  yelling  on  the  Stock  Ex- 
change (and  that  I  believe  is  a  very,  very 
respectable  vocation  indeed)  will  find  it 
a  serious  drain  on  her  physical  and  ner- 
vous resources. 

However  much  a  woman  may  court  mar- 
tyrdom, I  never  heard  of  one  who  deliber- 
ately invited  vexation  of  spirit.  She  may 
find  a  genuine  happiness  in  the  weariness 
she  has  incurred  for  the  sake  of  some 
great  object;  but  she  finds  no  happiness 
in  the  annoyances  she  encounters  purpose- 
lessly. Now,  it  is  just  these  vexations, 
73 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

these  annoyances,  which  it  is  a  part  of 
her  vocation  to  avoid.  So  far  from  being 
an  incident  of  motherhood,  they  are  an 
impediment. 

Most  of  these  annoyances,  these  vexa- 
tions, with  which  a  mother  has  to  con- 
tend, come  from  a  maladjustment  between 
her  children  and  their  environment.  Quar- 
rels among  themselves,  irritability  and 
disobedience  toward  her,  impositions  upon 
the  servants,  pertness  with  their  elders, 
insubordination  toward  their  teachers, 
altercations  with  their  playmates,  and 
friction  with  the  neighbors  —  it  is  affairs 
of  these  sorts  that  bray  a  woman's  nerves 
and  wrack  her  mind.  No  woman  can 
long  endure  these  things.  There  are  not 
many  courses  open  to  her.  She  can  die, 
or  she  can  rid  herself  of  her  children  by 
consigning  them  to  servants  who  are  paid 
for  accepting  her  responsibility.  In  either 
case  she  no  longer  concerns  us.  Let  us 
suppose,  however,  that  she  remains  a 
mother.  Then  the  only  course  that  she  can 
74 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

pursue  is  to  attempt  some  mode  of  adjust- 
ment. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  she  can 
act.  She  can  undertake  either  to  adjust 
her  children  to  their  environment,  or  to 
adjust  their  environment  to  them.  Al- 
most every  mother  adopts  either  one  way 
or  the  other  within  the  first  two  months 
of  her  first  baby's  life.  The  young  lord 
of  creation  puts  the  problem  squarely 
before  her:  Am  I  to  begin  my  reign  now 
—  and  I  warn  you  it  will  be  a  case  of 
whimsical  autocracy  —  or  must  I  take 
my  place  in  the  order  of  this  household  ? 
If  his  mother  is  a  washerwoman,  he  gets 
no  answer;  she  goes  about  her  washing 
and  he  finds  his  place  without  much  re- 
monstrance. The  children  of  the  poor 
are  blessed  with  mothers  who  have  this 
problem  settled  for  them  by  the  gaunt 
hand  of  necessity.  If,  however,  this  lord- 
ling  has  been  born  in  the  purple,  even 
of  very  light  shade,  he  has  a  good  chance 
of  seizing  the  sceptre  at  the  very  first 
75 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

grasp.  He  certainly  will  seize  it  and  wield 
it  relentlessly,  if  his  mother  decides  to  do 
the  easiest  thing.  At  the  beginning  and 
for  some  time  it  is  easier  to  conform  the 
household  to  the  baby  than  the  baby  to 
the  household.  It  is  easier  because  strictly 
at  the  beginning  it  is  necessary.  Even  the 
household  of  the  washerwoman  is  swerved 
for  a  few  days  out  of  its  regular  course; 
but  when  the  wash  comes  in  again,  the 
household  is  swerved  back.  The  trouble 
comes  in  those  families  where  the  mother's 
will  has  to  take  the  place  of  somebody 
else's  wash.  Of  course  there  are  cases 
which  cannot  be  considered  normal.  The 
newcomer  is  puny  and  needs  the  constant 
attention  that  every  invalid  requires;  or 
the  mother's  strength  has  been  sapped, 
and  she  must,  for  everybody's  sake,  do 
the  easiest  thing.  In  such  cases  there  is 
no  choice.  Ordinarily,  however,  the  issue 
is  not  long  postponed.  The  trained  nurse, 
if  there  is  one,  can  have  a  good  deal  to  do 
in  deciding  it.  Probably  it  will  be  most 

76 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

distinctly  raised  over  a  question  of  feeding. 
The  foundation  of  absolute  monarchy 
within  many  a  plain  American  home  has 
been  laid  by  allowing  the  diminutive  heir 
apparent  to  engage  in  midnight  feasting 
when  every  consideration  of  orderliness 
commanded  sleep.  It  is  on  such  an  occa- 
sion that  a  man,  if  he  has  any  chivalry  in 
him,  will  sustain  his  wife's  good  resolu- 
tion. If  he  chooses  to  be  anything  more 
to  his  household  than  a  purveyor,  he  will 
not  have  to  wait  long  to  make  good  his 
determination. 

The  difference  between  a  household 
adjusted  to  a  child  and  a  child  adjusted 
to  a  household  is  the  difference  between 
unstable  and  stable  equilibrium.  Quiet- 
ness, peace,  and  an  aspect  of  repose  may 
be  found  in  both  cases;  but  in  the  one 
case  every  new  movement  threatens  an 
upset. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  households,  the 
adjustable  and  the  unadjustable.  A  child, 
let  us  say,  wakes  in  the  morning.  If  he  is 
77 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

accustomed  to  an  adjustable  household, 
there  is  an  end  of  sleep  for  those  who  have 
the  care  of  him.  For  the  sake  of  peace 
to  the  others  some  one  has  to  keep  him 
quietly  amused  until  the  time  of  rising. 
That  some  one,  we  all  can  guess,  is  the 
mother.  At  breakfast  it  is  the  child  that 
is  first  served,  and  when  he  is  finished 
with  eating  it  is  his  new  demands  that  in- 
terrupt the  meal.  The  mother  does  her 
household  tasks  under  the  child's  super- 
vision. In  order  to  avoid  the  necessity  of 
leaving  them  to  rush  upon  every  demand 
to  the  nursery,  she  manages  to  have  him 
in  the  room  with  her.  Tethering  him  to 
the  leg  of  a  table,  barricading  him  behind 
chairs,  occupying  his  mind  now  with  one 
bauble,  now  with  another,  she  succeeds, 
with  the  exercise  of  an  acquired  versatility, 
in  securing  for  him  safety  from  harm,  for 
the  furniture  measurable  immunity  from 
damage,  and  for  herself  a  comparatively 
noiseless  morning.  When  the  time  for 
his  nap  arrives,  she,  as  the  available  mem- 

78 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

ber  of  the  household,  leaves  everything 
else  and  puts  him  to  sleep.  After  he  wakes 
and  is  dressed,  a  caller  arrives.  For  an 
instant  forgetful,  she  starts  to  leave  the 
young  ruler.  A  wail  recalls  her.  A  gurgle 
of  satisfaction  rewards  her  for  taking  him 
in  her  arms.  The  visitor  is  now  a  part  of 
the  household  and  must  be  properly  ad- 
justed. At  the  sight  of  the  caller  the  baby 
makes  violent  protest.  Then  comes  the 
period  of  coaxing,  unsatisfactory  to  the 
child,  troublesome  to  the  mother,  and  dis- 
concerting to  the  guest.  Irreconcilable,  the 
youngster  is  handed  over  to  some  one  for 
the  nonce,  and  the  visitor  concludes  the 
call  and  departs  to  the  accompaniment  of 
mourning.  The  despot  is  easily  restored 
to  good  humor  as  soon  as  he  sees  again 
his  favorite  subject.  The  one  annoying 
episode  of  the  day  is  easily  set  down 
against  the  account,  not  of  the  child,  not 
of  his  mother,  but  of  the  caller.  "That 
black  gown  she  wore"  many  a  time  does 
duty  as  an  explanation  for  what  is  really 

79 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

the  product  of  an  adjustable  household. 
Aside  from  the  more  immediate  and 
obvious  disadvantages  of  the  adjustable 
household,  there  is  this :  that  it  hardly 
fits  the  child  for  living  in  an  unadjustable 
world. 

The  child  who  greets  the  morning  in 
an  unadjustable  household  finds  at  hand 
enough  to  amuse  him  until  it  is  time  for 
his  bath.  His  mother  has  not  led  him  to 
expect  anything  else.  I  remember  a  little 
fellow  whom  I  used  to  see  a  few  years 
ago.  Of  delicate  organism,  decidedly 
high-strung,  very  sensitive  to  sound  and 
motion,  he  needed  as  much  attention  as 
any  well  baby  ever  did.  Regularly  every 
morning,  after  giving  him  his  breakfast 
and  getting  him  ready  for  the  day,  his 
mother  took  him  to  the  nursery,  left  him 
on  the  padded  floor,  gave  him  his  few 
blocks,  and  left  him  to  his  devices.  She 
was  free  to  go  downstairs  then  about  her 
work.  She  was  not  beyond  earshot.  When 
the  sun  was  high,  she  wrapped  him  up 
80 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

well,  put  him  in  his  carriage,  and,  wheeling 
him  out  on  the  porch,  left  him  again  alone. 
In  the  afternoon  the  process  was  reversed: 
first  the  sunny  porch,  then  the  quiet  nur- 
sery. Times  for  play  with  him  came  to  an 
end  according  to  her  judgment,  not  his. 
Because  she  loved  him  and  understood 
her  vocation  as  mother,  she  established  in 
this  nervous  child  the  habit  of  encounter- 
ing the  world  with  placidity.  This  is  the 
way  of  the  mother  who  determines  that 
her  household  shall  be  unadjustable. 

There  are  those  who  regard  childhood 
as  a  period  when  the  individual  becomes, 
to  use  Stevenson's  phrase,  "well  armored 
for  this  world."  It  is  this  conception  of 
childhood  as  a  preparation  for  after-life 
that  underlies  Huxley's  essay  on  liberal 
education.  There  are  others  who  would 
say,  with  a  recent  writer,  that  childhood 
is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  preparation  for 
youth  that  in  turn  becomes  a  preparation 
for  manhood,  but  rather  is  to  be  made 
"beautiful  and  glorious  in  and  for  itself, 
81 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

not  a  vestibule  to  a  vestibule  to  a  vesti- 
bule." Whichever  of  these  two  views  we 
take,  we  shall  find,  I  think,  that  the  only 
way  of  escape  from  disorder  and  con- 
fusion is  not  by  adjusting  the  child's  en- 
vironment to  him,  but  by  adjusting  him 
to  his  environment. 

The  one  unescapable  part  of  our  chil- 
dren's environment  is  —  ourselves.  Over 
them  we  are  always  impending.  At  in- 
convenient times  we  rise  in  their  way  and 
impede  their  most  absorbing  occupations. 
On  their  excursions  into  the  wilds  of  fancy 
it  is  we  who  obtrude  and  with  philistine 
complacency  drive  them  back  into  the 
gross  world  of  wash-basins  and  table 
manners.  Three  small  boys  are  busy 
blasting.  One  is  a  workman;  a  second 
is  the  fuse;  the  third  is  the  hole,  and  is 
about  to  explode  for  the  sixth  time.  Who 
interrupts  with  some  trivial  but  insistent 
remark  about  less  noise  or  clean  clothes  ? 
One  of  us.  And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  we 
who  are  so  troublesomely  recurrent,  and 
82 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

who  are  their  source  of  supplies,  seem  to  be 
incapable  of  appreciating  the  delights  of 
becoming  at  will  a  trolley-car,  an  alliga- 
tor, a  goblin,  or  a  hole  in  the  ground.  That 
is  the  sort  of  environment  we  are;  and 
if  we  are  going  to  adjust  our  children  to 
it,  we  ought  to  understand  how  knurly  it 
is.  When  we  understand  that,  we  shall 
perhaps  see  the  importance  of  giving 
our  children  a  chance  to  explode  without 
being  flung  repeatedly  against  our  prosy 
protuberances.  Sometimes  we  can  man- 
age that  by  simply  giving  them  room  for 
their  own  Arcady.  (And  it  is  not  our 
business  to  insist  that  their  Arcady  be 
our  sort.)  Sometimes  it  will  be  necessary 
to  manage  this  otherwise.  We  may,  for 
instance,  live  in  a  flat.  In  that  case  we 
may  actually  have  to  exercise  some  im- 
agination and  suggest  to  them  an  occu- 
pation which  will  keep  them  from  a  too 
rasping  contact  with  us.  The  first  re- 
quisite, then,  for  peace  is  a  reasonable 
degree  of  non-interference. 

83 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

Interference,  however,  we  cannot  al- 
ways avoid.  Then  the  question  becomes 
one  of  interfering  without  friction.  Any 
one  can  give  commands  to  a  child,  or  in- 
struct him  after  a  fashion,  or  punish  him; 
but  to  exercise  authority  over  a  child  and 
at  the  same  time  keep  on  good  terms  with 
him,  that  is  an  art  in  which  we  are  not 
all  equally  adept.  But  it  is  an  art  we  must 
master  if  we  are  to  be  free  of  unnecessary 
annoyance  and  a  great  deal  of  fruitless 
pother.  We  cannot  be  on  good  terms  with 
a  healthy  child  except  on  the  basis  of 
justice.  That  is  one  reason  why  an  alter- 
cation with  a  child  is  a  sign  of  failure  in 
discipline :  it  is  not  sportsmanlike.  It  lacks 
the  prime  element  of  justice,  an  equal 
chance  for  each  opponent.  When  we  take 
a  child  for  an  antagonist,  we  do  not  enter 
a  square  fight;  we  have  him  at  an  unfair 
advantage.  He  knows  it  as  well  as  we, 
and  that  is  why,  even  if  we  win  —  as  win 
we  ought  with  size  and  strength  and  wit 
on  our  side  —  our  victory  is  an  inglorious 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

failure.  When  he  succumbs  in  the  struggle, 
he  has  learned  only  one  thing  —  that  he 
must  enlarge  his  resources.  A  small  boy 
leaves  his  sled  in  the  front  hall.  He  is 
ordered  to  remove  it  and  he  refuses.  Then 
comes  the  tussle.  Rather  than  go  to  bed, 
he  finally  complies.  The  next  time  he 
awaits  the  approach  of  a  visitor.  This 
time  he  leaves  his  sled  in  the  front  hall 
and  flees.  He  has  learned  his  lesson  — 
to  pick  the  place  and  moment  for  battle 
when  the  enemy  is  at  a  disadvantage. 
The  visitor,  serenely  unconscious  of  the 
fact,  has  diverted  the  enemy.  The  sled 
is  whisked  out  of  sight.  No  penalty  now 
inflicted  on  the  boy  can  be  to  him  other 
than  the  manifestation  of  resentment  and 
chagrin  on  the  part  of  an  outwitted  ad- 
versary. In  such  a  case  what  does  justice 
suggest  ?  There  is  the  voice  of  one  in 
authority. 

"Your  sled  is  in  the  front  hall;  put  it 
away." 

"But  I  don't  want  to.   I'm  playing." 

85 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

The  affair  seems  to  be  at  an  end.  There 
is  no  insistence;  there  are  no  threats. 

A  day  later.  "Mamma!  Mamma! 
Where's  my  sled  ?" 

"Did  you  look  in  its  place  ?" 

"Yes,  and  it  is  n't  there." 

"Where  did  you  leave  it?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"Think." 

(With  shamed  face)  "I  guess  in  the 
front  hall." 

"You  had  better  look  in  the  front  hall, 
then." 

"It  is  n't  there." 

"Did  you  expect  to  find  it  there  ?" 

"No-o." 

There  is  no  ground  for  altercation  here. 
Perhaps  there  may  be  need  for  explanation. 
The  loss  of  a  day's  coasting  in  this  case 
may  be  actually  a  severer  punishment 
than  the  threatened  hours  in  bed  in  the 
other  case,  but  it  comes  in  the  course  of 
justice,  and  the  boy  knows  it.  Nobody 
has  won  a  victory,  because  there  has  been 
86 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

no  struggle;  but  somebody  has  learned  a 
lesson.  And  through  it  all  the  boy  remains 
on  good  terms  with  his  environment. 

Of  course  it  would  never  do  for  a  child 
to  live  in  too  just  a  world;  his  awaken- 
ing upon  entrance  into  the  world  that 
we  grown  folks  have  made  for  ourselves 
would  be  cruelly  rude.  He  must  have 
ample  chance  to  learn  how  to  meet  injus- 
tice. Happily,  such  chance  will  frequently 
come  his  way  without  any  solicitude  on 
our  part.  One  can  discern  something  al- 
most purposeful  in  the  fact  that  the  sense 
of  justice  is  no  part  of  the  parental  in- 
stinct. Indeed,  it  seems  as  if  it  had  been 
made  especially  difficult  for  grown  people 
to  deal  justly  with  children.  For  one  thing, 
in  order  to  be  just  with  a  child  one  must 
be  prepared  to  believe  anything,  no  matter 
how  preposterous.  Once  on  a  time  a  little 
girl  was  going  downstairs.  In  her  arms 
she  held  a  precious  doll.  She  knew  that  it 
was  a  prized  family  possession.  To  her 
consternation  she  suddenly  felt  it  leave  her 
8? 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

hold,  and  in  an  instant  she  saw  it  lying 
broken  upon  the  stairs.  When  she  was 
questioned  by  her  mother,  she  announced 
simply  that  the  doll  had  jumped  from  her 
arms.  In  spite  of  all  that  her  mother 
said  to  her  on  the  evil  of  willful  untruth, 
she  persisted  in  her  story.  Whether  she 
was  punished  I  do  not  know;  but  if  she 
was,  it  was  not  because  of  an  accident, 
but  because  of  a  falsehood.  In  any  case, 
she  suffered  the  indignity  of  being  dis- 
believed. For  a  long  time  the  feeling  of 
injustice  rankled  in  her.  It  was  not  until 
she  had  grown  old  enough  to  learn  that  a 
doll  cannot  leap  that  she  relinquished  her 
faith  in  the  statement  which  had  been 
treated  by  her  mother  as  a  lie.  A  dash 
of  credulity  would  have  established  a 
good  understanding  with  that  child;  but 
that  was  too  much  to  expect.  It  is  not 
easy  to  be  credulous  at  the  right  times. 
That  is  one  reason  why  we  need  never 
take  pains  lest  we  be  too  just  with  our 
children. 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

With  the  best  of  intentions,  the  most 
competent  of  us  will  now  and  then  lapse 
into  deeds  of  injustice.  If  we  discovered 
them  all,  we  should  lead  uneasy  lives.  A 
kind  Providence,  however,  keeps  us  oblivi- 
ous of  most  of  them;  and  our  children  are 
slow  in  learning  to  preserve  a  grudge. 
When  one  of  us,  however,  discovers  that  he 
has  been  unjust  toward  his  child,  what  does 
he  do  ?  That  depends  on  his  standards. 
If  his  ambition  is  to  be  omniscient  and  in- 
fallible, he  keeps  the  discovery  to  himself, 
and,  if  he  corrects  the  injustice,  manages 
by  some  subterfuge  to  make  the  correction, 
not  an  act  of  justice,  but  an  act  of  grace. 
His  policy  might  be  epitomized  in  Jow- 
ett's  motto  for  public  men:  with  children 
his  practice  is,  "Never  retract,  never 
explain;  get  it  done,  and  let  them  howl." 
For  one  who  does  not  care  to  pay  the 
price  of  courage  and  self-respect,  this 
rule  can  be  made  to  work  very  well. 
One  whose  ambition,  however,  is  to  be 
authoritative  with  children  will  value 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

sincerity  with  them  as  a  principle  and 
not  as  an  expedient.  Karl  has  appar- 
ently been  guilty  of  willful  disobedience; 
he  has  done  something  he  was  told  not 
to  do.  The  punishment  which  regularly 
follows  rebellion  is  announced.  It  then 
transpires  that  what  seemed  disobedience 
was  really  misunderstanding.  What  can 
be  done  ?  Since  the  maternal  court  does 
not  crave  infallibility,  the  error  in  sentence 
is  acknowledged.  So  far  from  impairing 
confidence  in  the  court,  this  proceeding 
actually  tends  to  buttress  it.  The  next 
time  an  adverse  judgment  is  declared 
and  sentence  is  inflicted,  the  culprit, 
even  if  he  believes  himself  guiltless,  will, 
if  he  thinks  about  it  at  all,  suspect  that 
the  judge  is  attempting,  not  to  preserve 
her  dignity,  but  honestly  to  administer 
justice.  A  child  can  pay  his  parents  no 
greater  honor  than  by  protesting,  in  the 
belief  that  he  will  be  heard,  that  a  threat- 
ened punishment  would  be  unfair. 

Even  that  mother  who  finds  other  occu- 
90 


PEACE  AT  A  PRICE 

pations  more  dignified  and  gratifying 
than  that  of  motherhood  cannot  wholly 
escape  the  necessity  of  deciding  whether 
the  ground  of  her  dealings  with  her  chil- 
dren shall  be  justice  or  something  else. 
In  delegating  responsibility  to  servants, 
she  must  decide  whether  she  will  delegate 
authority  also.  The  woman  who  puts 
her  children  in  the  charge  of  a  hired  maid 
and  then  declares,  "I  will  never  require 
a  child  of  mine  to  obey  a  servant,"  delib- 
erately chooses  to  be  unjust  to  her  children. 
That  she  is  also  unjust  to  the  servant  is 
not  so  grave  a  matter.  The  servant  can,  if 
she  wishes,  find  anpther  mistress ;  but  the 
child  is  compelled  to  be  content  as  he  can 
with  that  mother.  Such  a  woman  is  usually 
quite  powerless  to  secure  obedience  toward 
herself.  When  her  daughters  are  grown, 
she  wonders  why  they  do  not  become  her 
friends;  when  her  sons  are  grown,  she 
wonders  why  they  exhibit  no  desire  for  her 
companionship. 

The   only   footing   for  comradeship   is 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

fair  dealing.  Even  a  sense  of  humor, 
essential  as  that  is,  will  not  take  its  place. 
Who  would  be  a  comrade  with  his  children 
must  first  be  just  with  them. 


V 

FOR  TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

WHY  we  expect  children  to  be  more 
tranquil  than  a  parliamentary  body 
or  a  ministers'  meeting  I  do  not  know  and 
cannot  imagine.  To  be  troubled  because 
children  quarrel  is  to  deplore  one  of  their 
chief  prerogatives  —  the  prerogative  of  be- 
ing themselves.  The  time  to  be  troubled 
is  not  when  they  quarrel  merely,  but  when 
they  quarrel  in  the  wrong  way  or  about 
wrong  things.  To  teach  children  how  to 
quarrel  and  what  to  quarrel  about  is  one 
of  the  duties  of  parents. 

Together  with  some  compensating  ad- 
vantages, an  only  child  has  one  indis- 
putable misfortune:  there  is  no  one  in 
the  family  he  can  really  quarrel  with. 
No  altercation  he  might  have  with  a 
grown-up  could  be  dignified  with  the 
name  of  quarrel.  All  his  quarreling  he 

93 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

must  do  outside  his  home.  Consequently, 
he  cannot  receive  from  his  parents  all 
the  attention  that  he  might  receive  if  he 
were,  say,  one  of  six.  When  he  finally 
encounters  other  children,  he  does  not 
know  the  bounds  either  of  expediency  in 
tolerating  their  idiosyncrasies,  or  of  right 
in  maintaining  his  own.  With  skill  his 
parents  may  acquire  artificially  for  them- 
selves, as  well  as  for  him,  the  experiences 
which  naturally  befall  a  larger  household. 
It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  those  parents 
are  fortunate  who  have  quarreling  chil- 
dren. To  them  avenues  of  education  are 
open  which  are  closed  to  the  parents  of  an 
only  child. 

I  do  not  refer  to  those  roads  which, 
originating  in  the  nursery,  have  led  to  the 
depths  of  theology  or  to  the  heights  of 
moral  discourse.  The  road  which  has 
landed  more  than  one  theologian  in 
meditation  upon  the  depraved  nature  of 
the  child  may  well  have  had  its  beginning 
in  childish  quarrels.  There  was  Jonathan 
94 


FOR  'TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

Edwards,  for  instance;  he  had  ten  sisters 
and  about  as  many  children.  This  sug- 
gests a  fit  subject  for  a  thesis.  Then 
that  pleasanter  if  less  picturesque  way, 
bordered  with  the  flowers  and  the  weeds  of 
rhetoric,  which  has  brought  the  preacher 
and  the  versifier  to  sermons  and  rhymes 
for  the  edification  of  the  young,  must  have 
received  many  a  traveler  from  tributary 
paths  of  domestic  strife.  Isaac  Watts, 
for  instance,  who  being  dead  yet  speaketh 
of  dogs  and  bears  and  lions  and  children, 
was  the  eldest  of  nine.  The  avenues  of 
education  to  which  I  refer,  however,  are 
open  only  to  parents  or  vice-parents,  and 
lead  only  to  parental  skill. 

Some  parents  act  as  if  they  did  not 
even  know  that  these  avenues  exist. 
Consequently,  when  they  encounter  con- 
tention among  their  offspring,  they  fly  in 
all  directions  at  once.  This  undoubtedly 
makes  for  agility.  For  example :  — 

Waves  of  turmoil  burst  through  the 
closed  doors  of  the  playroom,  flood  the 

95 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

stairway,  and  whelm  to  the  ears  the 
placid  group  of  grown-ups  in  the  living- 
room.  As  the  visiting  cousin  nervously 
halts  her  small  talk,  and  the  tired  mother 
lays  down  her  knitting,  the  master  of  the 
house,  with  an  air  of  finality,  gesturing 
the  others  into  subsidence,  breasts  the 
billows  of  sound.  Upward,  two  steps  in 
a  stride,  he  makes  an  assault  upon  the 
playroom. 

"What's  all  this  about?"  as  he  flings 
open  the  door.  "Bless  me!  everybody 
can  hear  you  all  over  the  house.  Your 
mother  and  I  are  n't  undertaking  to  keep 
a  zoo.  Do  you  suppose  that  somebody 
can  be  running  up  here  every  five  minutes  ? 
Besides,  don't  you  know  that  your  mother's 
cousin  Bettina  is  visiting  us,  and  that  she 
is  distracted  by  this  sort  of  uproar  ?  Now 
don't  try  to  interrupt.  What  did  you  say  ? 
That  Ruth  threw  a  coal-car  at  you  ?  Why, 
Ruth,  my  little  girl !  that's  a  very  danger- 
ous thing  to  do.  If  you  had  struck  one  of 
the  boys  in  the  eye,  you  might  have  made 


FOR  T  IS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

him  blind.  I  shall  have  to  take  the  cars 
away,  if  you  are  going  to  do  dangerous 
things  with  them.  What's  that?  They're 
not  Ruth's  cars  ?  What  of  it  ?  Does  that 
make  them  any  the  less  dangerous  ?  Now, 
don't  interrupt  again.  Besides,  Ruth,  that 
was  a  very  unladylike  thing  for  a  little  girl 
to  do.  And,  boys,  you  are  at  fault,  too. 
Ruth  would  never  have  done  that  if  you 
had  n't  done  something  to  her.  Is  that  the 
way  young  gentlemen  should  treat  a  young 
lady  ?  And  Ruth  is  younger  than  you. 
She  can't  defend  herself  unless  she  does 
something  like  that.  I  shall  have  to  pun- 
ish you  all;  perhaps  that  will  help  you 
to  learn  how  to  behave.  Now,  you  boys, 
go  over  to  Ruth  and  ask  her  pardon; 
and,  Ruth,  you  kiss  them  and  tell  them 
you're  sorry.  And  now  play  together 
properly.  See  if  you  can't  get  along  till 
tea-time  without  making  a  disturbance." 

Satisfied  that  he  has  settled  an  acute 
difficulty,  this  composite  father,  in  whose 
voice  has  sounded  some  tones  that  I  dare 

97 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

not  disown,  descends  the  peaceful  stairs. 
What  he  has  actually  done  has  been  to 
throw  into  hopeless  unsettlement  a  situ- 
ation that  was  after  a  fashion  already 
half  settled.  If  the  children  are  quiet, 
it  is  because  they  are  dazed  by  the  feats 
of  an  acrobatic  adult  mind.  They  have 
watched  their  father  make  a  circuit  of 
the  situation,  cross  at  least  a  half-dozen 
paths  that  led  safely  out,  and,  ignoring 
all,  return  to  the  point  of  departure. 
The  benefit  they  have  received  from  the 
performance  is  not  at  all  the  benefit  he 
believes  he  has  imparted.  It  has  not 
been,  as  he  fancies,  the  benefit  of  disci- 
pline; it  has  been  the  benefit  of  diversion. 
As  for  himself,  he  has  received  that  most 
welcome  of  benefits — a  mental  frame  of 
complacency. 

Not  being  as  nimble  as  he,  we  may 
find  it  worth  our  while  to  stop  for  a  moment 
at  each  path  that  he  passed  and  explore 
it.  What  we  are  prone  to  forget  is  that 
from  almost  every  difficulty  of  this  kind 


FOR  'TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

there  are  several  exits,  and  that  there 
is  no  progress  made  in  attempting  to 
travel  more  than  one  at  a  time.  In  this 
case,  all  need  for  the  display  of  gymnastics 
might  have  been  avoided  by  the  consider- 
ation of  a  few  simple  questions. 

One  question  has  precedence  of  all 
others :  Shall  I  interfere  or  not  ?  To 
decide  that  question  in  the  negative  is 
to  eliminate  all  the  others.  That  it  is 
necessary  to  do  this,  the  conjunction  of  a 
quarrel  and  a  luncheon  party  may  demon- 
strate. The  critical  time  comes  when 
there  is  no  luncheon  party.  To  allow 
children  some  chance  to  settle  their  own 
differences  is  as  certainly  an  act  of  disci? 
pline  as  it  is  to  settle  every  difference 
for  them.  It  is  none  the  less  discipline 
for  the  children  because  it  seems  to  be 
chiefly  self-discipline.  A  younger  sister 
once  had  a  grievance;  she  made  her 
protest  with  a  strident  whine.  Annoyed 
by  the  outburst,  her  mother  descended 
upon  the  whole  crew,  wormed  out  the 

99 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

merits  of  the  case,  and  with  an  even  hand 
apportioned  among  the  offenders  penalty 
or  reproof.  Having  profited,  as  it  hap- 
pened, by  this  occurrence,  the  small  girl, 
the  next  time  she  wished  to  gain  an  ad- 
vantage over  the  others,  resorted  to  the 
same  whining  outcry.  Immediately  the 
three  older  children  fell  to  playing  church. 
With  a  loud  and  discordant  hymn,  they 
designed  to  drown  the  sound  of  protest. 
Though  at  this  time  in  the  right,  they 
preferred  not  to  take  the  risk.  Already 
well  trained  by  her  children,  that  mother 
was  quick  to  remain  where  she  was.  It 
sometimes  requires  alertness  to  do  nothing. 
Just  though  her  interference  had  been, 
she  saw  that  it  not  only  had  encouraged  in 
one  child  an  annoying  mode  of  complaint, 
but  also  had  suggested  to  the  others  a 
noisy  mode  of  averting  judgment.  There- 
after it  seemed  easier  for  her  to  hesitate 
before  participating  in  her  children's  con- 
troversies. How  can  children  experiment 
with  the  principles  with  which  their  elders 
100 


FOR  'TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

have  tried  to  endow  them,  except  upon 
those  occasions  when  those  didactic  elders 
do  not  interfere  ?  How,  on  the  other  hand, 
can  those  same  elders  see  what  effect 
their  precepts  have  had,  unless  the  children 
can  begin  a  quarrel  on  the  chance  that 
they  may  end  it  themselves  ?  Deliberately 
to  determine  not  to  interfere  in  a  children's 
quarrel  comes  not  of  grace  but  of  labor. 
Any  one  can  lapse  into  indifference  as  to 
the  merits  of  a  dispute  between  two  young- 
sters, but  only  one  who  has  come  through 
affliction  to  self-control  can  at  the  same 
time  maintain  an  acute  interest  in  the 
triumph  of  the  just  cause  and  keep  his 
hands  off.  The  virtue  of  non-interference 
is  not  a  gift,  it  is  an  achievement. 

Occasions  which  demand  interference, 
however,  occur  frequently  enough  to  sup- 
ply with  plenty  of  exercise  any  normally 
active  parental  mind.  Whenever  it  is 
clearly  best  that  the  children  should  not 
be  allowed  to  end  their  quarrel  themselves, 
the  parent  who  is  not  in  search  merely 

10  I 


THti  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

of  self-complacency  can  ask  himself  a 
number  of  questions.  Usually,  the  time  for 
asking  and  answering  those  questions  is 
very  brief.  The  exercise  is  vigorous  while 
it  lasts.  On  the  way  from  the  living-room 
to  the  nursery,  the  hastening  parent  can, 
for  example,  perform  this  rapid  mental 
scale  passage:  To  what  purpose  am  I 
interfering  ?  Is  it  to  suppress  a  noise  ?  or 
to  avert  a  danger  ?  or  to  teach  courtesy  ? 
or  to  instruct  in  morals  ?  or  to  do  justice  ? 
or  to  establish  an  amicable  basis  ?  Later, 
and  perhaps  more  deliberately,  he  will  run 
over  this  scale  of  questions :  What  means 
shall  I  use  ?  Shall  it  be  force  ?  or  argu- 
ment ?  or  ridicule  ?  or  explanation  ?  or  ad- 
vice ?  or  instruction  ?  or  command  ?  or 
punishment  ?  It  requires  practice  to  pounce 
upon  the  note  principally  out  of  tune  in  a 
wealth  of  discord,  and  then  to  choose  the 
one  tool  that  will  set  it  right;  but  then, 
there  is  no  vocation  more  exciting  than 
parenthood. 

The  noise  of  a  quarrel  may  be  its  most 
1 02 


FOR  'TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

serious  offense.  We  can  admit  that  fact 
without  accepting  as  an  invariable  rule 
the  maxim  of  our  nervous,  overwrought 
ancestors,  Children  should  be  seen  and 
not  heard.  At  times  it  seems,  indeed, 
as  if  the  present  age  were  too  phlegmatic. 
There  are  people  for  whose  nerves  chil- 
dren should  be  made  to  have  some  regard ; 
there  are  invalids  who  do  not  thrive  on 
din;  there  is  necessary  work  which  cannot 
be  done  in  the  midst  of  a  racket;  there  are 
neighbors  who  declare,  with  some  show 
of  right,  that  they  regard  monopoly  in 
noise  as  against  public  policy.  So,  whether 
for  the  sake  of  cousin  Bettina's  nerves, 
or  a  tired  mother's  rest,  or  a  busy  father's 
conference  with  a  creditor,  or  merely  for 
the  sake  of  reputation  with  the  neigh- 
bors, it  may  be  best  to  disregard  all  other 
factors  and  insist  on  quiet.  That  seems 
clear  enough.  The  trouble  with  us  pre- 
tentious grown-ups  is  that  usually  when 
we  undertake  to  stop  a  quarrel  because  it 
is  disturbing,  we  delude  ourselves  into 
103 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

thinking  that  we  have  some  high  moral 
purpose.  We  can  expose  our  own  fatuity 
by  simply  inquiring  of  ourselves,  when  we 
begin  our  preachment,  Would  we  have 
interfered  if  this  quarrel  had  not  been 
so  strepitous  ?  It  is  one  of  the  annoy- 
ances in  the  training  of  children  that  if 
we  are  to  be  honest  with  them,  we  must 
be  honest  with  ourselves.  I  do  not  see 
how  that  can  be  helped.  And  with  children 
honesty  is  prerequisite  to  authority.  To 
pretend  that  we  chiefly  want  them  to  be 
good  at  a  time  when  really  we  chiefly  want 
them  to  be  quiet  is  to  renounce  all  influ- 
ence over  them  when  really  we  arrive  at 
the  point  of  chiefly  wanting  them  to  be 
good.  That  is  reason  enough  for  being 
honest  with  them.  So  when  we  set  out 
towards  a  quarrel  with  the  determination 
of  suppressing  a  noise,  we  shall,  if  we  are 
honest,  deal  with  the  quarrel,  not  as  tur- 
pitude, but  as  noise.  We  may  not  be 
able  to  persuade  the  contestants  of  the 
existence  of  nerves,  or  headaches,  or 
104 


FOR  'TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

creditors,  or  neighbors,  or  even  of  our 
own  reasonableness;  but  we  shall  at 
least  probably  succeed  in  conveying  to 
them  the  genuineness  of  this  single  idea 
that  is  uppermost  in  our  own  mind:  if 
you  can't  quarrel  quietly,  you  shall  not 
quarrel  at  all.  If  later  we  wish  to  impress 
upon  them  the  necessity  of  being  consider- 
ate of  others,  we  can  use  that  specific 
quarrel  as  an  illustration  without  risking 
with  them  our  reputation  for  singleness. 

A  quarrel  may  involve  something  which, 
even  more  than  noise,  demands  instant 
interference.  Two  small  boys  were  in  an 
altercation.  The  older  had  a  ball.  The 
younger  wanted  that  ball  with  a  consum- 
ing hunger.  The  nearest  weapon  at  hand 
was  the  discarded  shaft  of  a  golf  club. 
Seizing  it,  he  began  his  attack  with  reck- 
less fury.  The  sound  of  a  blow  upon  a 
piece  of  furniture  followed  by  an  outcry 
of  fear  brought  their  father  to  the  room. 
His  thought  was  not  for  anybody's  man- 
ners or  morals,  nor  for  the  disturbance, 
105 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

nor  for  a  just  settlement  of  the  contest;  it 
was  for  the  defenseless  boy's  head.  There 
was  but  one  possible  measure:  immedi- 
ate and  forcible  confiscation  of  the  club. 
This  was  frankly  not  punishment  —  which 
would  have  involved  a  moral  judgment 
—  but  simply  humane  intervention.  The 
announcement  that  the  club  was  to  remain 
confiscated  for  a  week  merely  emphasized 
the  extent  of  the  intervention,  not  the 
severity  of  a  punishment.  The  incident 
might  have  served  as  an  occasion  for  a 
lecture  upon  the  danger  of  the  wanton  use 
of  weapons;  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  believe, 
it  was,  of  a  sort;  but  — 

"Oh,  daddy,  it  was  my  ball!" 
"No,  daddy,  really  it  was  n't!" 
All  such  discussion  as  to  the  merits  of 
the  dispute  was  quashed.    Likewise  was 
stifled  all  inclination  on  the  part  of  the 
intervening  parent  to  deliver  a  lesson  on 
the    evils    of    an    ungovernable    temper. 
That  might  not  have  been  confusing,  if  it 
could  have  been  made  distinct  from  the 
1 06 


FOR  'TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

act  of  intervention;  but  it  was  not  neces- 
sary. The  fault  was  not  an  excess  of 
temper  so  much  as  a  thoughtless  or  igno- 
rant use  of  power.  At  least,  that  was  the 
judgment  on  which  this  father  acted. 
Whether  he  was  right  or  wrong  is  not  to 
the  point;  what  is  to  the  point  is  that  he 
formed  his  judgment,  acted  upon  it,  and 
did  not  obscure  the  issue  by  confusing 
the  consequences  —  or  possible  conse- 
quences —  of  a  deed  with  its  moral  char- 
acter. 

Just  as  the  physical  consequence  of  a 
quarrel  may  be  more  important  than  its 
moral  aspects,  so  may  be  its  significance 
as  an  exhibition  of  manners.  When  their 
elders  hopelessly  intermingle  precepts  as 
to  the  amenities  with  deliverances  upon 
ethics,  children  can  hardly  be  blamed 
if  they  come  to  regard  murder  as  in  the 
same  category  with  the  wearing  of  tan 
boots  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  frock 
coat.  An  altercation  marked  by  vulgarity, 
or  even  by  nothing  more  than  delinquen- 
107 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

cies  in  courtesy,  may  be  more  distasteful 
to  grown-ups  than  one  involving  mean- 
ness or  deceit.  In  such  a  case  we  may 
give  interference  the  form  of  an  expression 
of  disgust,  and  keep  the  issue  clear.  If, 
however,  we  allow  it  to  take  the  form  of 
punishment,  we  might  as  well  admit  to 
ourselves  that  we  are  engaged  not  in  dis- 
ciplining children  but  in  relieving  our  own 
feelings,  and  be  grateful  that  we  have  at 
hand  such  an  outlet  for  our  emotions. 

Occasionally  there  arises  a  quarrel 
which  supplies  a  text  for  a  moral  lesson. 
A  quarrel  of  this  sort  arose  one  day  be- 
tween a  small  boy  of  five  or  six  and  his 
sister  a  year  or  two  older.  The  mother 
of  these  two  had  issued  a  command  to 
the  younger  that  he  take  off  his  wet  shoes. 
In  a  few  minutes  she  heard  the  sound  of 
struggle.  It  called  for  investigation.  There 
on  the  nursery  floor  was  the  lad,  tearful 
and  angry;  near  at  hand  his  sister,  re- 
proachful and  indignant.  It  appeared 
that  his  neglect  of  the  order  had  aroused 
108 


FOR  'TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

her  to  action.  He  resented  her  assump- 
tion of  authority ;  she  resented  his  resent- 
ment. The  case  was  not  as  simple  as  it 
appeared  to  be.  Punishment  of  the  small 
boy  without  explanation  would  have 
seemed  to  him  like  punishment  for  dis- 
obedience toward  a  sister  who  was  with- 
out authority.  On  the  other  hand,  a  re- 
buke of  the  sister  for  unwarranted  assump- 
tion of  authority  would  have  seemed  to 
her  like  a  rebuke  for  loyalty  to  her  mother. 
It  was  a  case,  not  primarily  for  punish- 
ment or  even  for  rebuke,  but  for  moral 
instruction,  or,  if  you  prefer,  explanation. 
As  an  occasion  for  the  doing  of  justice, 
a  quarrel  among  children  often  presents 
great  perplexities.  It  is  hard  for  a  mother 
to  be  a  just  judge  between  her  children. 
This  is  partly  because  she  is  so  practiced 
in  partiality  for  her  children  that  she  re- 
volts at  the  apparent  hardness  of  imper- 
sonal fairness;  partly  because  she  fre- 
quently cannot  ascertain  the  facts.  A 
mother  who  loves  justice  while  she  loves 
109 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

her  children  will  not  be  quick  to  ascend 
the  bench.  Sometimes,  however,  she  must. 
There  was  once  called,  for  instance,  the 
case  of  Ronald  vs.  Dan.  After  a  state- 
ment of  the  case  made  in  turn  by  the  two 
litigants,  and  confirmed  or  corrected  by  the 
visiting  playmate  Davy,  the  facts  seemed 
to  be  as  follows:  The  boys  were  cutting 
advertising  pictures  out  of  newspapers. 
Each  of  the  boys  had  his  own  pile  of 
newspapers  which  was  his  property.  Dan 
had  on  one  of  his  papers  a  picture  which 
he  did  not  care  for,  but  which  Ronald 
cared  for  very  much.  No  sooner  had 
Ronald  expressed  his  desire  for  this  pic- 
ture than  Dan  crumpled  the  paper  up  in 
his  hand  and  threw  it  into  the  waste- 
basket.  Hence  the  complaint.  The  act 
was  undeniably  one  of  meanness;  it  was 
done  with  the  intent  to  exasperate;  but  it 
transgressed  no  rights.  The  paper  was 
Dan's  property,  to  be  disposed  of  as  he 
pleased.  Ronald  had  not  the  slightest 
claim  upon  it.  This  was  clearly  under- 

IIO 


FOR  'TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

stood.  While  the  trial  was  in  progress, 
Davy,  the  witness,  fished  the  paper  out  of 
the  waste-basket,  where  it  had  become  the 
personal  property  of  nobody,  cut  out  the 
picture,  smoothed  its  wrinkles,  and  pre- 
sented it  to  the  grateful  Ronald.  Justice 
to  Dan  had  compelled  the  recognition  of 
his  right  to  do  with  his  own  as  he  pleased. 
Judgment  rendered  for  the  defendant. 
Could  any  mother  be  satisfied  with  that 
outcome  ?  So  far  as  determining  whether 
punishment  was  to  be  measured  out,  that 
ended  the  case.  Strictly  observing  as  be- 
tween herself  and  her  children  their  pro- 
perty rights,  that  judge  could  not  refuse  to 
enforce  those  rights  as  among  themselves. 
This  case,  however,  raised  another  ques- 
tion than  that  of  justice. 

This  was  the  question  of  future  amity. 
The  generous  action  of  Davy,  the  witness, 
made  it  possible  to  use  the  incident  for 
furthering  not  only  just  but  also  happy 
relations  among  the  children.  It  made 
the  defendant  somewhat  ashamed  of  him- 
III 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

self,  although  of  course  it  did  not  in  the 
least  obscure  to  his  mind  the  conscious- 
ness that  the  judge  had  dealt  with  him 
justly.  It  moreover  restored  the  sun  to 
the  complainant's  cloudy  face.  Thus  at 
the  same  time  it  impressed  on  the  mind 
of  the  guilty  a  sense  of  his  own  meanness 
and  effaced  the  memory  of  that  meanness 
from  the  mind  of  the  aggrieved.  It  is  not 
always  that  a  judge  has  a  Davy  at  hand. 
It  will  not,  however,  necessarily  confuse 
matters  if  she  act  the  part  of  Davy  her- 
self. It  is  sometimes  possible  thus  to  give 
a  practical  demonstration  of  the  fact  that 
the  spoils  of  justice  are  not  always  satisfy- 
ing. 

As  in  walking,  so  in  living  with  our 
fellows,  some  friction  is  necessary.  To 
deprive  a  child  of  friction  with  other  chil- 
dren is  to  keep  him  in  slippery  places. 
Unless  we  wish  to  teach  him  how  to  elude 
his  kind,  we  shall  not  begrudge  him  his 
wholesome  contests  of  skill,  of  wit,  of 
strength,  of  temper.  We  shall  only  take 

112 


FOR  'TIS  THEIR  NATURE  TO 

care  that  he  does  his  fighting  fairly  and 
not  on  too  slight  a  provocation,  that  he 
knows  how  to  yield  to  the  weakness  of 
another,  that  he  does  not  learn  to  whine 
or  snivel,  that  he  does  not  become  a  tale- 
bearer, that  he  can  take  defeat  or  rebuke 
without  callousness  and  without  a  whim- 
per, that  he  becomes  capable  of  forgetting 
his  resentments  and  his  personal  triumphs 
over  others,  and  that  of  all  his  victories, 
he  learns  to  value  most  those  which  he 
wins  over  himself. 


VI 

THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

THE  master  of  the  house  had  returned 
from  a  visit  to  the  country  home. 

"Whom  do  you  suppose  I  saw  to-day  ?" 

The  children  could  not  imagine. 

"Old  Robert.  And  what  do  you  think 
he  said  ?" 

The  guesses  flew  wide. 

"No;  you're  all  wrong.  What  he  said 
was,  'How  are  the  little  men  ?" 

Then  up  rose  Deacon,  as  the  old  col- 
ored man  had  dubbed  him,  the  youngest, 
blandest,  tricksiest  of  the  trio;  and  he 
laughed  in  derisive  resentment. 

"I  think  old  Robert  is  funny.  He  calls 
us  little  men.  I  don't  think  people  will 
like  old  Robert  if  he  calls  'em  names." 

Names!  Will  children  never  cease  to 
shock  us  by  their  points  of  view  ?  Old 
Robert,  like  a  well-baked  pie,  had  put  all 
114 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

the  richness  of  his  highly  flavored  feeling 
for  the  lads  into  that  one  phrase.  He  made 
it  serve  him  as  a  message  of  loyalty,  re- 
spect, affection,  comradeship. 

Old  Robert  had  probably  never  heard 
of  James  Mill;  and  if  he  had,  he  would 
not  have  cited  him  as  an  authority;  for 
old  Robert  did  not  act  according  to  the 
logic  of  his  phrase.  James  Mill,  however, 
did  just  that;  he  proceeded  on  the  theory 
that  it  is  wholesome  to  treat  children  as  if 
they  were  miniature  men  and  women.  He 
began  with  his  first-born  by  fitting  to 
him  an  intellectual  frock  coat  and  tall 
hat.  Why  he  waited  till  the  youngster  was 
three  years  old  no  one,  so  far  as  I  know, 
has  ever  explained.  Without  much  further 
delay  he  also  gave  him  a  religious  outfit. 
This,  though  decidedly  less  conventional 
than  his  intellectual  wardrobe,  had  the 
same  adult  cut.  It  was  not  the  Benthamite 
fashion  of  his  religious  garb,  but  its  mature 
lines,  that  gave  John  Stuart  Mill  his  air  of 
fascinating  priggishness  and  suave  conceit. 

"5 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

Our  taste,  unlike  James  Mill's,  may 
be  for  orthodoxy.  We  need  not  on  that 
account  despair  of  imbuing  our  children 
with  religious  precocity  and  self-assurance. 
Before  he  was  ten  years  old,  John  Stuart 
Mill  had  learned  that  Christianity  was 
immoral,  and  that  there  was  no  personal 
God.  There  is  no  reason  why  any  child 
at  the  same  age  may  not  know  all  the  mys- 
teries of  predestinarianism,  and  be  old 
in  the  experiences  of  sanctification.  All 
we  need  is  the  diligence,  the  courage,  the 
determination  of  James  Mill. 

In  these  qualities  some  of  our  forbears 
had  the  advantage  of  us.  They  knew  very 
definitely  what  they  wished  their  children 
to  do  and  to  believe.  Among  them  was  an 
American  contemporary  of  James  Mill,  the 
Rev.  Carlton  Hurd.  There  are  people 
still  living  who  gratefully  recall  the  min- 
istration of  this  kindly,  stalwart  New  Eng- 
land divine.  He  so  ran  as  not  uncertainly; 
so  fought  he,  not  as  one  that  beateth  the 
air.  And  his  certitude  did  not  forsake  him 
116 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

in  the  training  of  his  little  daughter.  It 
may  seem  almost  grotesque  to  couple  the 
English  author  and  employee  of  the  East 
India  Company  with  the  Orthodox  Amer- 
ican parson.  The  one  held  beliefs  antipo- 
dal to  those  of  the  other.  James  Mill,  more- 
over, not  being  able  to  believe  in  a  God 
so  stern  as  to  create  this  evil  world,  made 
up  what  was  lacking  in  the  cosmos  b" 
cultivating  in  himself  an  iron  sternness 
toward  his  son ;  on  the  other  hand,  Parson 
Hurd,  as  he  is  still  affectionately  called, 
being  fully  persuaded  of  the  existence  of 
a  God  capable  of  infinite  wrath,  seemed 
to  cherish  in  himself,  as  sort  of  compen- 
sation, a  most  touching  solicitude  for  his 
daughter.  In  only  one  respect  did  Parson 
Hurd  resemble  James  Mill,  —  in  having 
and  holding  to  a  body  of  convictions 
which  were,  to  his  mind,  not  only  indis- 
putable, but  also,  in  substance  at  least, 
essential  to  the  proper  adornment  of  the 
mind  of  a  child.  The  letter  in  which  he 
tells  the  story  of  Marion  Lyle  Hurd  is 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

the  narrative  of  a  complete  and  orderly 
religious  experience. 

Marion  died  at  the  age  of  four  years. 
When  she  was  eight  months  old,  her  par- 
ents read  to  her  from  leaflets  for  Sabbath 
Schools.  They  explained  to  her,  when  she 
was  a  year  and  a  half  old,  in  answer  to 
questions  from  her,  the  origin  and  use  of 
the  Bible.  They  noted  that  when  she  had 
reached  the  age  of  two  "  her  mind  was  seri- 
ously exercised  with  religious  things."  At 
that  time  she  would  sometimes  kneel  down 
and  would  say:  — 

"Mother,  I  am  going  to  pray.  What 
shall  I  say  to  God?" 

"Ask  God  to  make  you  good  and  give 
you  a  new  heart." 

"What  is  a  new  heart,  Mother  ?" 

"This  was  familiarly  explained,"  writes 
her  father,  "and  at  the  same  time  she  was 
particularly  informed  of  the  way  of  sal- 
vation by  Jesus  Christ,  and  the  steps  God 
had  taken  to  save  sinners.  We  endeavored 
to  impress  upon  her  mind  that  she  was 
118 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

a  sinner  and  needed  forgiveness ;  and  God 
would  forgive  her  sins,  and  give  her  a  new 
heart  through  Jesus  Christ."  That  from 
this  time  "she  chiefly  devoted  her  few  re- 
maining days  to  the  acquisition  of  reli- 
gious knowledge"  her  father  finds  to  be 
"a  consoling  reflection."  He  adds,  with 
conscientious  caution,  "If  she  was  truly 
converted,  we  cannot  tell  when  the  change 
took  place."  Her  parents  hoped,  however, 
after  she  had  died  two  years  later,  that 
she  had  "entered  'the  city  of  our  God/" 
Though  they  had  no  means  of  perceiving 
the  approach  of  the  disease  of  the  brain 
which  occasioned  her  death,  they  realized 
that  the  sensitiveness  and  activity  of  her 
mind  warned  them  "to  lead  Marion  with 
the  gentlest  hand;  to  make  her  way  as 
quiet  and  even  as  possible."  In  this  third 
year  the  books  which  were  read  to  her 
included  Parley's  "Geography"  and  "As- 
tronomy," Gallaudet's  "Child's  Book  on 
the  Soul,"  and  "  Daily  Food  for  Chris- 
tians." In  her  fourth  year  her  books, 
119 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

which  she  read  to  herself,  were,  besides 
the  Bible,  "  Child's  Book  on  Repentance," 
"Life  of  Moses,"  "Family  Hymns," 
"Union  Hymns,"  "Daily  Food,"  "Les- 
sons for  Sabbath  Schools,"  "Henry  Mil- 
nor,"  Watts' s  "Divine  Songs,"  "Memoir 
of  John  Mooney  Mead,"  "Nathan  W. 
Dickerman,"  Todd's  "Lectures  to  Chil- 
dren," and  "Pilgrim's  Progress."  As  these 
titles  indicate,  she  was  "particularly  fond 
of  reading  the  biography  of  good  little 
children."  Of  all  her  books,  however, 
Bunyan's  masterpiece  seems  to  have  been 
the  most  instructive.  Her  knowledge  of 
the  allegory  was  tested  by  questions.  She 
knew  why  Christian  went  through  the  river 
while  Ignorance  was  ferried  over.  She 
knew  what  was  meant  by  the  Slough  of 
Despond  and  the  losing  of  the  Burden. 
"When  we  come  to  Christ,"  said  she, 
"we"  (not  Christians,  or  people,  or  you, 
but  we)  "lose  our  sins."  And  she  sought 
from  her  father  a  certificate  to  enter  the 
City.  "We  cannot  doubt,"  comments  her 
1 20 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

father,  "  Marion  understood  much  of  what 
was  intended  to  be  taught  in  that  book, 
which  Phillip  says,  in  his  life  of  John  Bun- 
yan,  contains  the  essence  of  all  theology. 
Certainly,  she  was  familiar  with  every  step 
of  the  pathway  of  holiness  trod  by  Chris- 
tian, from  the  city  of  Destruction  through 
the  river  of  death  to  the  'Celestial  City/" 
And  later  he  adds  that  she  evinced  "a  fa- 
miliar acquaintance  with  all  parts  of  that 
allegory  and  its  doctrine."  Though  he 
makes  clear  in  his  letter  that  "it  is  not  the 
piety  of  the  full  grown  and  mature  chris- 
tian,  that  we  are  to  look  for  in  a  child,'* 
he  makes  equally  clear  that  in  all  essen- 
tial particulars  her  piety  was  complete.  It 
included  even  a  regard  for  the  signifi- 
cance of  eternal  reward  and  penalty.  From 
Doddridge's  "Expositor,"  both  by  exam- 
ining the  pictures  and  reading  "the  sacred 
text"  under  the  direction  of  her  father, 
she  derived  many  ideas  of  the  crucifixion 
and  resurrection  of  Jesus,  and  the  gen- 
eral resurrection  at  the  end  of  the  world. 

121 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

"Marion,"  continues  the  narrative,  "after 
closely  inspecting  the  countenances  given 
in  those  pictures,  both  to  the  just  and 
unjust,  in  the  resurrection,  would  say, 

"Oh!  how  the  wicked  look,  when  they 
rise  from  the  dead !'  adding  in  a  serious  and 
solemn  manner, 

"'"There  is  a  dreadful  hell, 
And  everlasting  pains, 
Where  sinners  must  with  devils  dwell, 
In  darkness,  fire,  and  chains." ' 

Indeed,  from  the  earlier  months,  life 
after  death,  "the  happiness  of  the  good, 
and  the  misery  of  the  wicked,"  were  topics 
of  "frequent  and  delightful  conversation 
with  her  parents." 

In  her  last  hours  she  expressed  her  as- 
surance that  she  would  be  saved,  and  her 
last  audible  words  were,  "I  am  not  afraid 
to  die."  Thus  ended  this  brief  life  of  four 
years  and  twenty-six  days. 

An  example  of  such  training  would  be 
hard  to  find  among  parents  of  the  present 
day.  This  is  not  because  there  are  no 

122 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

parents  who  have  Parson  Kurd's  convic- 
tions ;  neither  is  it  because  there  are  none 
who  have  his  confidence  in  the  capacity  of 
children.  It  is  because  there  are  lacking 
parents  who  have  both  the  convictions  and 
the  confidence.  The  reason  why  many 
parents  fail  where  James  Mill  and  Parson 
Hurd  succeeded  is  that  they  try  to  make 
compromise  between  two  contradictory 
theories.  Although  they  wish  to  give  their 
children  a  full  complement  of  doctrines, 
they  either  do  not  possess  the  full  comple- 
ment themselves,  or  do  not  believe  that 
their  children  are  mature  enough  to  re- 
ceive it.  The  spectacle  of  adults  attempt- 
ing to  instruct  a  primary  class  in  the  Logos 
Doctrine  by  the  kindergarten  method  is 
thoroughly  modern. 

If  the  way  of  Parson  Hurd  and  James 
Mill  seems  to  us  either  too  hard  or  unreal, 
there  is  another  way  that  may  be  found. 
That  is  the  studious  exclusion  of  religion 
from  the  life  —  even  from  the  knowledge 
—  of  our  children.  It  was  this  way  that 
123 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

J.  S.  Mill  supposed  his  father  set  him 
traveling.  Of  course  he  was  mistaken 
when  he  said  in  his  autobiography  that 
he  never  had  religious  belief.  He  was  em- 
bowered in  religious,  though  not  in  Chris- 
tian, or  even  in  theistic,  belief.  The  way 
that  he  walked  was  erroneously  marked  on 
his  map;  that  was  all.  This  is  worth  not- 
ing because  it  indicates  how  easily  even 
a  logician  may  miss  this  obscure  way  of 
no  religion.  Those  who  would  lead  their 
children  by  this  route  must  avoid  the  very 
shadow  of  religion  as  they  would  that 
of  the  upas.  Indeed,  against  even  the  air 
that  has  passed  the  shadow  of  religion  they 
must  quarantine  their  children.  Religion 
is  infectious.  It  can  be  conveyed  by  the 
subtlest  means.  To  it  children  are  per- 
ilously liable.  Against  it  there  seems  to 
be  no  trustworthy  antitoxin.  Children  are 
surrounded  by  infected  people.  A  chance 
word  may  deposit  the  germ.  One  child  out 
of  the  brood  may  thus  fall  a  victim  to  a  par- 
ticularly virulent  species  of  religion  simply 
124 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

because  he  never  had  it  in  a  mild  form. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  possible  to  establish  a 
quarantine  that  may  chance  to  remain 
effective  for  years.  By  this  means  children 
may  be  kept  from  a  knowledge  of  religion 
just  as  many  are  safely,  or  dangerously, 
kept  from  a  knowledge  of  what  most  people 
regard  as  advanced  physiology.  One  fam- 
ily, I  am  told,  has  taken  this  way.  How 
successful  it  has  proved,  I  cannot  say.  All 
I  have  heard  is  that  one  member  of  the 
family  is  now  enlisted  in  the  ministry.  This 
does  not  necessarily  betoken  failure.  The 
theory  was  simply  that  each  child  was  to 
be  kept  immune  until  he  was  old  enough 
to  decide  for  himself  whether  or  not  he 
would  take  the  infection.  This  way  is  not 
the  way  of  indifference.  It  cannot  be  fol- 
lowed by  any  one  who  is  not  profoundly 
affected  by  religion,  whether  hostile  or 
friendly  to  it.  It  may  require  less  routine 
diligence  than  the  other  way,  but  it  re- 
quires more  anxious  circumspection. 
Different  from  either  of  these  is  that 
125 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

third  way  blazed  by  the  developing  traits 
of  our  children.  Those  who  take  it  cannot 
regard  religion  as  a  form  of  doctrines  or 
practices  to  be  handed  over  to  their  child 
ready-made;  neither  can  they  regard  it 
as  a  superfluity,  which  they  are  to  with- 
draw from  their  child  until  he  can  choose 
to  avoid  it  as  a  danger  or  accept  it  as  a 
luxury.  They  can  regard  it  only  as  a  mode 
of  life  and  therefore  a  mode  of  growth. 
They  conceive  it  to  be  quite  as  perfect 
when  it  is  genuinely  manifested  in  the 
immaturities  of  the  boy  or  girl  as  when  it 
is  shown  in  the  riper  forms  of  old  age. 

Not  that  they  undervalue  doctrines. 
They  know  that  there  never  was  a  religion 
that  did  not  formulate  itself.  They  look, 
however,  for  the  doctrines  to  follow  the 
religion,  not  the  religion  the  doctrines. 
They  are  not  surprised  when  they  find 
their  children  constructing  a  philosophy 
of  religion  for  themselves.  Once  upon  a 
time  a  little  girl  was  heard  to  address  her 
dolls :  "There's  us,  and  Bridget,  and  Jews. 
126 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

We're  all  made  of  the  same  material;  and 
we  all  have  the  same  Father;  I  guess  the 
difference  is  that  some  are  more  refined 
than  others."  No  grown-up  could  have 
given  her  in  the  same  number  of  words  a 
more  thoroughly  typical  example  of  the- 
ology: a  union  of  anthropology,  biology, 
and  metaphysics,  with  a  quasi-ethical  con- 
clusion. No  ecumenical  creed  could  have 
been  more  valid  for  the  generation  that  pro- 
duced it  than  could  this  brief  philosophy 
be  for  her. 

Those  who  would  take  this  third  way 
well  know,  too,  that  there  are  some  phases 
of  religion  from  which  it  may  be  well,  if 
possible,  to  save  children  for  a  time.  It 
is  no  more  necessary  to  feed  them  on 
Dante's  "Inferno"  than  on  Welsh  rabbit. 
This,  however,  is  very  different  from  en- 
forcing abstinence  from  all  religious  food. 

Conceding  as  much  as  this,   then,  to 

dogma  and  to  caution,  those  who  do  not 

object  to  seeing  a  child  grow  will  —  let  him 

grow.    They  will  not  be  surprised  if  he 

127 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

looks  out  on  the  world  with  wonder.  Nei- 
ther will  they  be  surprised  if  his  wonder  is 
slow  in  reaching  satiety.  It  is  sometimes 
very  leisurely. 

Davy,  aged  six,  asked  one  day  at  table : 
"Mamma,  what's  above  the  clouds  ?" 

"Air." 

After  a  moment  of  thought:  "What's 
above  the  air  ?" 

"Ether." 

Another  moment  of  thought;  then, 
"What's  above  the  ether?" 

"More  ether.    Ether  is  everywhere." 

Throughout  this  colloquy,  Davy's  bro- 
ther Donald,  two  years  younger,  seemed  no 
more  attentive  than  usual ;  which  means  he 
was  quite  inattentive.  A  few  weeks  later, 
Davy  had  occasion  to  tell  some  one  the 
story  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  and  added 
his  usual  formula,  "I  think  they  v/ere 
foolish  to  try  to  get  up  to  God,  for  God 
is  everywhere."  Donald's  mind  seemed 
busily  engaged  about  some  other  matter. 
A  few  months  passed,  and  Donald,  now 
128 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

turned  five,  Donald  the  inattentive,  sud- 
denly thrust  at  his  mother  this  question :  — 

"Is  God  ether?" 

"No,"  said  his  mother,  with  a  little  hes- 
itating inflection ;  she  was  trying  to  prepare 
herself  for  the  unknown  but  inevitable 
sequence.  It  came  promptly:  — 

"Is  God  the  universe?" 

Not  willing  to  commit  herself  to  pan- 
theism, she  answered  again,  "No;"  and 
this  time  her  inflection  was  more  hesitant 
and  inquiring  than  before. 

"How  can  God  be  everywhere?" 

For  all  those  months  that  wonder  had 
been  nestling  in  that  small  mind  until  it 
grew  brave  enough  to  become  vocal.  Ether 
everywhere ;  God  everywhere ;  God  is 
ether.  Why  not  ?  And  if  not,  how  can  both 
be  true  ? 

"Grandfather  is  in  the  library;  perhaps 
he  can  tell  you." 

A  sound  on  the  stairway  like  the  roll 
of  a  drum  and  Donald  was  down  in  the 
library. 

129 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

"Grandfather,  how  can  God  be  every- 
where ?" 

Grandfather  touched  Donald's  hand : 
"Is  Donald  here,  or,"  touching  his  shoul- 
ders, "is  he  here,  or,"  touching  his  chest, 
"is  he  here,  or,"  touching  his  knee,  "is 
he  here?" 

Donald  did  not  hesitate;  touching  each 
spot  in  turn,  he  answered :  "  Donald  is 
here,  and  here,  and  here,  and  here." 

"So  it  is  with  God,"  said  his  grandfa- 
ther; "he  is  in  New  York  and  England  and 
China  and  the  sun  and  the  moon  and  the 
stars." 

With  a  smile  that  broke  like  the  dawn, 
and  that  meant  both  understanding  and 
gratitude,  Donald  stood  thoughtfully  still  a 
moment,  and  then  skipped  off  to  his  blocks. 

Wonder.  That  seems  to  be  the  first  phase 
of  religious  experience,  and  it  grows  silently 
unless  it  is  thrust  out  by  some  grown-up 
body's  system,  or  is  atrophied  by  studious 
neglect.  Miracles  ?  Santa  Claus  ?  Need  we 
trouble  ourselves  about  these  when  our 
130 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

children  are  sun-worshipers,  polytheists, 
pagans  ? 

Wonder  is  only  one  part  of  religion.  The 
natural  response  to  wonder  is  ritual.  And 
children,  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  are  na- 
tively ritualistic.  The  little  son  of  a  well- 
known  writer  went  with  his  mother  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life  to  service  in  the 
Church  of  England.  As  they  entered,  the 
people  were  singing;  as  the  music  ended, 
the  people  knelt. 

"What  are  they  going  to  do  now, 
Mamma  ?" 

"They  are  going  to  kneel  and  say  their 
prayers." 

"What!  with  all  their  clothes  on  ?" 

Untrained  in  ecclesiasticism,  that  small 
boy  had  developed  a  ritual  of  his  own. 
Night-clothes,  to  his  mind,  were  essential 
to  the  proprieties  of  religion.  What  does 
it  matter  to  the  ritualist  whether  or  not  he 
understands  all  the  words  he  says  ?  The 
ritual  itself  is  his  reaction  to  the  spirit  of 
reverence. 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

Indeed,  ritual  is  almost  a  prerequisite 
to  the  spirit  of  reverence.  It  is  Professor 
James  who  has  said  that  a  man  does  not 
double  up  his  fists  because  he  is  angry,  or 
tremble  because  he  is  afraid;  he  is  afraid 
because  he  trembles,  and  is  angry  because 
he  doubles  up  his  fist.  So  one  may  say  that 
a  man  does  not  kneel  because  he  is  rev- 
erent; he  is  reverent  because  he  kneels. 
What  power  ritual  has  needs  no  further 
demonstration  than  that  afforded  by  the 
Society  of  Friends.  What  ritual  surpasses 
in  power  that  of  the  Quaker  meeting-house  ? 
What  vestments  have  given  color  and  form 
to  character  more  effectually  than  the  old- 
fashioned  Quaker  garb  ?  If  we  wish  our 
children  to  have  the  spirit  of  courtesy,  we 
insist  that  they  acquire  the  habit  of  speak- 
ing politely.  If  we  wish  them  to  have  the 
spirit  of  reverence  —  there  is  no  knowing 
what  we  shall  do,  for  most  of  us  are  very 
human  and  irrational. 

That  is  the  reason  why  we  shall  probably 
be  careless  in  considering  the  question  of 
132 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

church  attendance.  There  are  some  of 
us,  perhaps,  who  have  the  sense  to  give  an 
intelligent  answer  to  the  question,  Why 
don't  you  have  your  children  go  to  church  ? 
There  is  only  one  rational  answer  to  that 
question.  It  might  be  put  into  some  such 
form  as  this  :  "  I  have  no  special  objection 
to  churches.  They  are  useful.  So  are  free 
libraries.  People  who  have  no  books  at 
home  find  free  libraries  a  great  benefit; 
but  my  family  have  at  home  all  the  books 
they  need.  So  people  who  are  not  well 
supplied  with  religion  derive  undoubted 
benefit  from  churches ;  but  my  family  have 
at  home  all  the  religion  they  need.  The 
community  would  be  about  as  well  off 
without  any  churches  as  it  is  with  the 
churches  it  has.  If  no  other  charity  seems 
more  important,  I  am  willing  to  contribute 
to  a  church  as  I  might  to  a  free  library; 
but  really  I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  go 
to  church  myself,  or  expect  my  children 
to  go."  That  is  a  rational  answer.  I  know 
of  no  other  answer  essentially  different 

133 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

that  could  be  called  rational.  An  equally 
rational  answer  can  be  given  to  the  other 
question,  Why  do  you  require  your  chil- 
dren to  go  to  church  ?  It  might  be  put  in 
these  words:  "A  church  of  some  kind  is 
essential  to  the  welfare  of  this  commu- 
nity. Without  any  church,  even  the  value 
of  real  estate  in  this  place  would  enor- 
mously depreciate.  That  shows  how  every- 
body recognizes  the  church  as  a  conserva- 
tor of  social  morality.  In  this  respect  the 
church  stands  alone.  The  sermons  may 
be  nearly  as  dull  as  those  which  I  have 
to  preach  to  my  children;  the  music  may 
be  even  less  entertaining;  but  the  con- 
gregation represents  as  no  other  body  of 
people  the  moral  sense  of  the  community. 
Besides  that,  the  church  is  the  only  expres- 
sion of  religion  as  something  not  merely 
individual  but  also  organic.  Inasmuch  as 
the  church  cannot  be  a  church  without  a 
congregation,  I  am  obliged,  if  I  believe  all 
this,  to  take  my  share  in  maintaining  the 
existence  of  that  congregation.  And  since 
134 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

the  responsibility  for  seeing  that  my  chil- 
dren take  their  share  cannot  be  put  upon 
them,  it  rests  upon  me.  As  a  consequence, 
they  no  more  question  why  they  go  to 
church  than  they  question  why  they  go 
to  meals.  They  are  not  being  entertained; 
they  are  not  primarily  even  being  in- 
structed. For  that  reason  it  is  not  neces- 
sary, though  it  may  be  advantageous,  for 
them  to  understand  the  sermon.  They  are 
forming  a  habit.  On  much  the  same 
grounds  I  am  acquainting  them  with  the 
Bible.  What  they  store  in  their  memory 
now  they  need  not  understand  till  later. 
There  is  a  time  for  learning  by  heart;  there 
is  a  time  for  understanding.  I  no  more  pro- 
pose to  postpone  my  children's  practice  in 
religious  observances  until  they  reach  the 
age  of  discretion,  than  I  propose  to  post- 
pone their  practice  in  being  honest  or  in 
learning  their  five-finger  exercises."  That 
answer,  like  the  other,  is  rational. 

A  part  of  ritual  is  the  observance  of  days 
and  seasons.    To  this  phase  of  religion  we 

135 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

may  expect  children  to  be  sensitive.  Paul's 
mother  came  into  the  nursery  one  Sunday 
afternoon. 

"What  are  you  doing?" 

"Studying." 

Paul's  mother  was  surprised. 

"We  try  to  keep  Sunday  different  from 
other  days.  After  this  we  shall  understand 
that  you  are  not  to  study  on  Sundays." 

A  little  more  than  two  weeks  later,  Paul 
came  home  from  school. 

"Sammy  is  a  funny  boy,"  he  remarked. 

Sammy  is  a  schoolmate. 

"What  has  he  done?"  inquired  Paul's 
mother. 

"Why,  Sammy  gets  his  lessons  on  Sun- 
day." 

Two  Sundays  had  sufficed  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  tradition  in  religion  so 
complete  that  a  violation  of  it  seemed 
grotesque. 

In  regard  to  the  observance  of  Sunday, 
one  household  has  reversed  the  traditional 
rule.  The  ritual  characteristic  of  that  fam- 

136 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

ily  originated  in  a  bachelor  uncle's  remark. 
He  recalled  how  alluring  were  those  books 
which  had  been  forbidden  him,  as  a  boy, 
on  Sunday,  and  how  gray  a  day  Sunday 
was  because  those  books  were  proscribed. 
He  advocated  the  plan  of  selecting  cer- 
tain interesting  books,  which  would  be  for- 
bidden on  week-days.  In  other  words,  he 
would  remove  the  ban  from  Sundays,  and 
put  it  on  the  other  six  days.  His  plan  was 
adopted.  Certain  delights,  including  sev- 
eral volumes  of  stories  from  the  Bible,  were 
confined  to  Sunday.  In  consequence,  Bible 
stories  are  in  great  favor,  and  Sunday  is  a 
day  of  privilege.  In  that  household  the 
ritual  of  Sunday  observance  is  a  ritual  of 
liberty. 

Besides  wonder  and  ritual,  there  is  a  fac- 
tor in  religion  on  which  children  seize.  We 
may  call  it  hero-worship.  Others,  follow- 
ing the  lead  of  psychologists,  might  prefer 
to  name  it  imitation.  As  the  children  of 
a  certain  family  gather  to  look  at  Bible 
pictures,  they  are  prone  to  ask  of  any 

137 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

group  of  people  depicted,  "Are  those 
people  good  ?"  Reverence  for  what  to 
them  is  an  ideal  may  come  later  than 
wonder  or  ritual,  but  it  is  sure  to  come 
in  time  to  all  children.  Those  parents 
who  are  ready  to  take  their  children  as  they 
are  and  to  help  the  growth  of  the  spirit 
as  they  help  the  growth  of  the  body  incur 
the  peril  of  always  seeing  in  this  rever- 
ence a  searching  inquisition  of  their  own 
lives.  The  nearest  objects  of  hero-worship 
that  a  child  has  are  his  parents.  This  fact 
may  raise  a  disturbing  inquiry :  Shall  they 
puzzle  him  by  setting  forth  two  ideals  of  fa- 
therhood, one  incorporated  in  themselves, 
the  other  involved  in  their  representation 
of  the  character  of  God  ?  Shall  they  con- 
fuse the  mind  of  the  child  by  setting  up 
two  inconsistent  standards  of  human  ser- 
vice, their  own  lives  and  what  they  tell 
him  of  the  life  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  ?  This 
dilemma  of  course  is  avoided  by  such  par- 
ents as  hold  either  of  those  comfortable 
theories,  that  religion  is  a  theology  and  that 

138 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

religion  is  a  luxury.  In  the  one  case  such 
questions  are  not  pertinent;  in  the  other 
they  are  unimportant.  If,  however,  we 
understand  religion  to  be  a  mode  of  life, 
we  may  find  such  questions  as  these  driv- 
ing us  into  an  uncomfortable  corner.  They 
seem  to  compel  us  to  pose  as  exhorter 
and  pattern,  and  to  force  on  us  a  paralyz- 
ing self-consciousness.  Perhaps  it  will  not 
harm  us  to  be  occasionally  reminded  of 
the  fact  that  we  cannot  expect  our  children 
to  become  altogether  different  from  what 
we  are  determined  to  be;  but  to  be  always 
composing  precepts  and  assuming  the  atti- 
tude of  examples  seems  to  be  but  a  feeble 
part  to  play.  Happily,  we  need  not  confine 
our  children  to  the  contemplation  of  our- 
selves. There  are  many  who,  if  we  but 
let  them,  may  share  with  us  the  burden 
of  our  children's  imitativeness.  And  here 
comes  our  reward,  if  we  have  cultivated 
their  imagination.  We  may  be  a  bit  stingy 
ourselves;  but  if  we  covet  generosity  for 
our  children,  we  can  let  Abram  make  the 


THE  TRAINING  OF  PARENTS 

suggestion.  We  may  cherish  our  own  re- 
sentments; but  if  we  want  our  children  to 
despise  theirs,  we  can  let  them  join  that 
group  that  heard  Peter  bidden  to  put  up 
his  sword.  Whatever  may  happen  to  us 
in  the  process  will  probably  do  us  no  hurt. 
We  may  find  another  illustration  of  that 
which  we  encountered  at  the  beginning, 
that  the  principal  part  in  the  training  of 
our  children  is  the  training  of  ourselves. 
This  may  have  meant  to  us,  when  we 
started  on  our  course,  that  the  training  of 
ourselves  was  simply  the  preparation  for 
the  training  of  our  children.  By  this  time 
we  shall  have  discovered  that  it  is  not  so 
much  a  preparation  as  an  outcome.  This 
art  of  being  a  parent  is  an  art  of  give  and 
take.  If  it  is  more  blessed  to  give,  as  the 
Lord  said,  it  is,  as  far  as  parents  are  con- 
cerned, quite  as  obligatory  to  receive.  As 
much,  at  least,  as  this  is  the  implication 
in  one  thing  that  our  Lord  did.  Whether 
he  ever  instructed  a  child  in  the  faith 
we  do  not  know;  we  have  not  been  told. 
140 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  WISDOM 

What  has  been  told  is  that  when  he  wished 
to  show  his  disciples  —  among  them  some 
parents,  we  may  surmise  —  what  religion 
was,  he  took  a  child  and  set  him  in  the 
midst  of  them. 


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